Focus Features

Nekisa Cooper

Producer

Nekisa Cooper is a 2008 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellow. She also represented the IFP at the 2009 Cinemart/Rotterdam Producing Lab.

For Dee Rees, she has produced the multi-award-winning short film Pariah; the documentary feature Eventual Salvation; the short films Orange Bow (as co-producer) and Colonial Gods; and now Pariah.

Ms. Cooper is currently in post-production on the feature documentary La muñeca fea, a Creative Promise Award winner from the 2009 Tribeca All Access Program and 2010 Elizabeth Peña Fellowship Award Winner through Film Independent. The film focuses on a group of elderly sex workers who live together in Mexico City as a community in Casa Xochiquetzal, a refuge named after the Aztec goddess of beauty and love.

Before she became a producer, Ms. Cooper had a successful career working in brand management for such companies as Colgate-Palmolive, L’Oreal, and General Electric; and held assistant coaching positions for women’s basketball on the Division I, Division III, and high school levels. She earned a BA in government with a minor in Japanese studies from The College of William & Mary; and an MBA in marketing from Clark Atlanta University.