Dustin Lance Black

Dustin Lance Black is an American screenwriter, director, film and television producer. He has won Film Independent's Spirit, American Film Institute, Writers Guild of America and Academy Awards for Milk, a retelling of the life and times of the murdered San Francisco Supervisor, Harvey Milk.

Written works include The Journey of Jared Price, a gay romance film; Something Close to Heaven, a gay coming-of-age short film; and Virginia, all of which he also directed. Black's film Pedro, profiled the life of AIDS activist and reality television personality Pedro Zamora. He also wrote the screenplay for the biographical drama, J. Edgar.

Raised as Mormon, he was hired as the only such writer on the HBO drama series, Big Love, about a polygamous family.

Black wrote the play 8, which portrays the actual events in the Hollingsworth v. Perry trial which led to the overturn of California's Proposition 8 (Eugene O'Neill Theatre).