Loyola Marymount University is a top-ranked national university by U.S. News and World Report, which places LMU among the top six Jesuit universities in the country and in the top six private universities in California. Founded in 1911, LMU is a Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount university with more than 7,100 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate and law students. LMU offers 56 undergraduate majors and 56 minor programs, along with 46 master’s degree programs, three doctorate programs and 12 credential/authorization programs. LMU’s intercollegiate athletics teams compete in the West Coast Conference with 14 Division I varsity sports.

LMU news and events are found at: www.lmu.edu/news.

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Semi-Finalist

Second Round Finalist in both Feature and One-Hour Pilot categories

Second Round Finalist

Sundance Institute Episodic Story Lab, 2017

Sundance Institute Episodic Story Lab, 2015

Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab, 2015

Academy Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, 2014

UCLA Student Finalist

Barbra Streisand/Sony Pictures Award, 2011-13

Fellowship Recipient

Chicago International Film Festival, 2008

Winner, Best of the Fest, "Of Boys & Men"

Centerpiece Selection, "Of Boys & Men"

Co-Chair, Committee of Black Writers, Writers Guild of America West

Co-Founder, LMU's School of Film and Television (SFTV) Students of Color Organization (SCO), whose mission to empower, increase visibility and create career opportunities for Students of Color. Won LMU’s 2019 New Outstanding Organization of the Year. 

My Image, My World

Raoul Peck Brings Life to James Baldwin’s Unfinished Manuscript

Black Film Then…And The ‘Eternal Now'

Killer Of Sheep: How Children Learn

The Pocketbook and the Black Matriarch

A Moment In The Life Of Jamaa Fanaka, Or The One That Started It All

Michelle Amor Gillie is a screenwriter, producer, and full-time clinical professor in the School of Film and Television at Loyola Marymount University, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate screenwriting courses. Her areas of expertise include Writing the Feature Screenplay, Rewriting the Feature Screenplay, and Adaptation: From Source to Screen. 

She has also taught screenwriting at UCLA, the American Film Institute (AFI), Chapman University, and California State University, Northridge (CSUN), working with emerging writers across Southern California. 

Internationally, she led immersive screenwriting courses in Budapest, Hungary (2019, 2024) at the Budapest Film Academy at Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary’s oldest university, where LMU students collaborated with international film students and professionals.

Michelle is a proud member of the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and served as co-chair of the WGAW Committee of Black Writers from 2013 to 2023, leading efforts to promote equity, inclusion, and opportunities for Black writers in film and television.

She is currently writing and producing Saving Brandon, a feature film based on the autobiography of WWE Legend Booker T. Huffman. In television, she sold P.G. County, an adaptation of Connie Briscoe’s bestselling novel, to Lifetime in 2024, in collaboration with Lionsgate TV and Mary J. Blige’s Blue Butterfly Productions. Her first series, The Honorable, co-created with Ali LeRoi (Everybody Hates Chris), was sold to CBS in 2019 and later resold to BET in 2020. She also has several new film and TV projects in development.

Her earlier screenwriting credits include the indie films Playin’ for Love, directed by and starring Robert Townsend, and Of Boys & Men, starring Academy Award nominee Angela Bassett. She also co-wrote and co-produced the documentary Tupac Shakur: Before I Wake.

In 2020, Michelle co-authored the viral open letter Dear Hollywood, addressing systemic racism in entertainment. It was featured in The LA Times, Washington Post, Forbes, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, and Variety. That same year, Variety named her one of the “top educators around the world.” In 2024, she was featured in LMU’s Ignite the Future: The Campaign for LMU for her work in storytelling and student success.

Michelle holds an M.F.A. from UCLA and a B.A. from Columbia College Chicago. A proud Chicago native, she now resides in Westchester, California, with her family.

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