Our STORY
THE COMPANY
Coffee Bluff Pictures is an award-winning Atlanta-based creative company founded by advertising agency executive Deborah Riley Draper to develop and share film, TV, and branded content as art that inspires engagement and outreach with the audiences and the greater community. The company's work explores interesting, under-represented characters and the rich, complicated journeys they embark upon in the U.S. and worldwide.
Coffee Bluff Pictures is committed to expanding the aperture of the African American narrative on the screen to increase universal awareness and understanding. From its debut film, "Versailles '73: American Runway Revolution", which premiered at the Marche du Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, to its most recent projects, "OnBoard," which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Festival to highly-anticipated ERA documentary "Ratified," which will air in October 2025 on Independent Lens to projects in development including the documentary "Romare Bearden: a life in Collage" and feature film adaptation projects "Coffee Will Make You Black" and "No One is Coming to Save Us", Coffee Bluff Pictures will continue to produce stories that capture all aspects of the African American experience on screen expanding the aperture of the American narrative and increasing everyone's awareness and understanding.
THE INSPIRATION
Coffee Bluff Road runs through White Bluff, a "quiet former slave community" just outside Savannah, GA. Deborah Riley Draper's family has been landowners along this road for over 150 years. The historical significance of this passageway and the stories hidden among the moss-draped oaks inspire and guide the company. Coffee Bluff Pictures seeks to tell the full range of African-American stories – past, present, and future.

"The future of marginalized voices and communities is inextricably linked to the sharing of our stories and the transfer of knowledge" Deborah Riley Draper