2026 Princess Grace Award
Nominated by: Upstander Project
Brit Hensel (Cherokee Nation) is an Oklahoma-based writer, director, and award-winning filmmaker. She is the first female enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation to direct a film selected by the Sundance Film Festival. Her work has screened at Sundance, imagineNATIVE, Hot Docs, and Full Frame.
Her short documentary ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught) premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, received an IDA Documentary Award nomination, and was selected for the inaugural Los Angeles Times Op-Docs. In 2025, her narrative short Thin Places premiered at imagineNATIVE, winning Best Performance in a Short Film, and later received Best Oklahoma Short Film at deadCenter. Brit is currently directing her first feature documentary, What She Carries, a collaboration between Tuya Gadu Productions and PageBoy Productions.
Her honors include four regional Emmy® Awards and the 2021–2023 Tulsa Artist Fellowship.
