OVERVIEW
In Canton, Ohio, an intergenerational group of Black women and girls revives the debutante ball — a once-flourishing tradition of the Black middle class — for the city's first cotillion in over a decade. Filmed at the 2022 ceremony, The Debutantes is a coming-of-age portrait that follows the young women through their final years of high school and into college, holding together the adversity and the joy, the elders and the debutantes, in an intimate study of Black girlhood and community.
Directed by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Contessa Gayles, the documentary is a co-production of Westbrook Studios with NBC News Studios and BET Studios, and premiered at the Tribeca Festival in 2024. It was among the first films greenlit as Westbrook launched its documentary division — a founding title for that slate, and a statement of the stories it set out to tell.
