Individual | Inducted 2026
Coquie Hughes is an award-winning independent filmmaker, writer, and director born and raised on Chicago’s West Side. For more than three decades, she has worked across filmmaking, theater, education, technology, and community engagement, creating opportunities for people to participate in storytelling as creators rather than only as subjects. Her body of work includes 24 feature films, web series, and short films.
Hughes was recently selected as one of five recipients nationwide for the Anarchists United Writers Discovery Fellowship, founded by filmmaker Lilly Wachowski. Through the fellowship, she is developing her award-winning television pilot, *LOAD IT COCK IT AIM SHOOT*, with mentorship from television industry professionals. She has also been selected as a presenter at South by Southwest and is a member of the 12-person Digital Storytelling Initiative cohort at the University of Chicago, presented in partnership with Community Film Workshop.
In addition to her filmmaking, Hughes founded Lights Camera Youth Action, a nonprofit organization that trains and empowers young people to work behind the scenes in film and television. She is also developing Pocket Set Studios, a media-technology startup focused on tools, accessories, and educational experiences for smartphone filmmakers. Through her collaboration with Sisters in Cinema, she has taught “Smartphone Camera Filmmaking,” offering accessible approaches to filmmaking. She has volunteered her talents at the Beverly Arts Center and secures funding to help nonprofit organizations provide arts-based programming for underserved youth.
Hughes is developing her next feature film, *SHE TOO BAD FOR HISTORY*, a historical drama about four formerly incarcerated West Side Chicago women in the late 1960s who are assigned to community service with the Black Panther Party. The film explores justice, sisterhood, political awakening, and liberation. She is also workshopping her first musical stage play, *GRANNY BALLERS*. Her work with new arts technologies focuses on reducing barriers and expanding opportunities for LGBTQ+ people, people of color, emerging artists, and residents of underserved communities to shape the future of storytelling.