Carmen Elly Wilkerson

Director and writer

Carmen Elly Wilkerson is an award-winning Writer and Director born in Detroit. She's the niece of famed Jazz drummer, Ernie Elly, best known for working with Ray Charles.

After much thought Carmen left behind a career as an Epidemiologist to pursue a career as a filmmaker. Carmen attended The American Film Institute's Directing Program where she received her Master’s in Fine Arts, and was awarded the Hollywood Foreign Press Award for Excellence in Directing. Carmen directed Fred Savage and Robert Pine in, A Guy Walks Into A Bar, a modern western that won her a Director's Guild Award, and a Cine Eagle Award.  After ‘A Guy's' television debut on Showtime, Variety called it a 'Mini Cult Classic'.  That same year Kodak named Carmen 'One of 16 FilmMakers to Watch'. She spent a year in the CBS Director Training Program on NCIS and CSI-NY shadowing veteran TV directors, Dennis Smith and Oz Scott.  Continuing on her creative journey, Carmen wrote and directed the short, The Reunion (2016), starring Lex Scott Davis, which was picked up by AspireTV, and went to over thirty festivals.  

In 2023, Carmen’s feature thriller screenplay, The Gown Man, was a finalist in the Women in Film/ Black List Feature Residency Program.   Later that year Carmen was chosen to pen the Christmas movie, ‘A Season to Remember’ for The Oprah Winfrey Network which will air in November 2024 on OWN, Discovery + and MAX.