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Peres Owino, a Kenyan film writer, has recently made headlines as the first Kenyan woman nominated for the US film awards in 2024.
She received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for her writing on the Netflix documentary series "African Queens: Njinga." The award ceremony will take place in Los Angeles, United States.
Peres's journey in the film industry began with her directorial debut, the documentary "Bound: Africans Vs African-Americans," which screened at numerous festivals worldwide.
It earned her the Women in Film-Lena Sharpe Award at the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival.
Additionally, she won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2015 Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles and the Best Film Directed by a Woman of Color Award at the 2015 African Diaspora Film Festival in New York. "Bound" was released on iTunes and the Urban Movie Channel.
Currently, Peres is in pre-production with her follow-up feature, "The Basket Weaver," which won the 2015 Meryl Streep NYWIFT Writer’s Lab competition and was a finalist at the 2015 Hollywood Screenplay Contest and semi-finalist at the 2015 Table Read My Screenplay competition in London.
In 2014, her script "Seasons of Love," co-written with Sharon Brathwaite, was produced by Taraji P. Henson ("Empire," "Hidden Figures") for Lifetime Network, earning them an NAACP Nomination for Outstanding Writing of a Television Movie. Peres and Sharon's collaboration began with the script "The Call," whose short film won the Mel Van Peebles Award at the San Francisco Black Film Festival.
Peres's writing portfolio also includes original works for the stage, such as "Cut," which premiered at the Walt Disney Concert Hall-REDCAT in 2010, and "Beauty for Ashes," which premiered in LA in 2009.
She has received an LA Ovation nomination and has appeared in over two dozen plays in New York and Los Angeles, portraying coveted roles like Hamlet in the LATC presentation of "Hamlet Princess of Nubia" and Lady Macbeth in the Coleman and Smith Artistic Company's presentation of "Mocbet."
Beyond writing and directing, Peres has numerous acting credits, including appearances in "Sasha Baron Cohen's film," "The Brothers Grimsby," "Supernatural," and "Break The Whip," among others.
She has also studied improv at the Groundlings School and stand-up comedy with legendary comedian Judy Carter.
Peres's most recent milestone is her nomination by the US Film Awards for a Daytime Emmy Award for the Netflix documentary series "Africa Queens," marking her as the first Kenyan woman to receive such recognition. The ceremony will be held in Los Angeles, United States.
