Neema Barnette is the first African American woman sitcom director. Barnette was the first African American woman to get a three-picture deal with Sony. In 1990, she founded Harlem Girl Productions Corporation. Since 1997, She has directed multiple seasons and episodes of a variety of television series including A Different World, Gilmore Girls, Queen Sugar, Blindspot, Luke Cage, Paradise Lost, Black Lightening, 2 seasons of Bosch for Amazon, Jane The Virgin, Raising Dion season 1, Being Mary Jane, Love Is, The Good Cop for Netflix, to name a few and most recently in 2020 “Genius Aretha ep. 2 & 3 and in 2021 Amazons new series Harlem.
Barnette has directed stage and 10 TV movies and 4 feature films. Sky Captain was her first film which she wrote & directed as part of the American Film Institute's (AFI) Directing Workshop for
Women in 1985. Her 2003 film Civil Brand is a low-budget feature on women in prison who stage an uprising to protest their treatment won 5 film festivals, opened the Pan African Film Festival, the
Urban Film Festival Best Feature Award, won the American Black Film Festival Best Feature Award and accepted into Sundance and got theatrical release by Lionsgate.
Her 1997 film, Spirit Lost, is a psychological thriller with a love triangle that includes a ghost. Her most recent feature film is Woman Thou Art Loosed: On The 7th Day in 2013 is her third for theatrical release.