Deborah Riley Draper does not make films about Black women. She makes films that center Black women the way the rest of the industry should have been doing for decades. Flipped is her latest. It is also one of the most important sports documentaries of the year.
The BET Digital release, produced by Coffee Bluff Pictures in partnership with Baller Alert Films, follows the first HBCU women’s collegiate gymnastics team at Fisk University from its historic launch in 2023 to its bittersweet end just three seasons later. Draper directed it. She also helped originate the project back in 2023 with Baller Alert Films CEO Robin Lyon when the team was preparing for its inaugural season.
This is what she does. This is who she is.
The Filmography That Earned Her The Flipped Chair
Draper is not a rookie. She founded Coffee Bluff Pictures, a Black owned Atlanta based creative company with a mission to tell the stories of underrepresented characters of color and expand the African American narrative across every screen that matters.
Her body of work speaks for itself. Versailles 73: American Runway Revolution documented the Black models who changed the fashion industry forever at the legendary 1973 Battle of Versailles runway showdown in Paris. Olympic Pride, American Prejudice told the story of the 18 African American Olympians who competed at the 1936 Berlin Games, defying Hitler and Jim Crow at the same time. That film earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination. Twenty Pearls was the first original documentary on Xfinity’s Black Experience platform, telling the story of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. The Legacy of Black Wall Street became a landmark docuseries for Discovery+ and OWN.
That is a resume that tells Google, tells film festivals, and tells Baller Alert’s audience exactly one thing. Deborah Riley Draper is a serious filmmaker.
Why She Said Yes To Flipped
Draper connected to the Fisk story before most of the sports world was paying attention. She saw what was happening in Nashville as more than a feel good headline. She saw it as a blueprint for equity and access in a sport that had historically marginalized Black women.
“This is the most aspirational coming of age sports story of the year,” Draper said when the project was first announced in 2023. “My work as a filmmaker has always and will always be about unpacking and centering stories of extraordinary Black women as they navigate the intersection of race, gender, and class. Watching this unfold in gymnastics will be a blueprint and a lesson for equity and access.”
She spent three years following the team. By the time the program shut down at the end of its third season, she had captured something that no one else in the sports media space had access to. The sacrifices. The breakthroughs. The quiet moments between routines. The gut punch of learning the program was ending.
What Draper Brought To The Film
“Directing Flipped is a celebration of brilliance, resilience, and the power of possibility,” Draper said when BET announced the film’s April 7, 2026 release. Fisk University’s historic gymnastics team is another chapter in Black excellence, grace meeting grit, discipline meeting destiny. Bringing their story to the screen expands the lens of the American narrative and reminds us that when we share our stories fully and fearlessly, we elevate the spirit of us all.”
The film centers on five athletes. Naimah Muhammad. Ziya Coleman. Jordan Cromartie. Morgan Price. Kiara Richmond. Each one carries a different piece of the story. Draper’s signature is the way she lets them speak for themselves. No over narration. No over production. Just access, trust, and truth.
The Bigger Picture For Baller Alert Films
Flipped is the debut project for Baller Alert Films. That it launched with Deborah Riley Draper in the director’s chair is not an accident. It is a statement. Baller Alert is not playing in the documentary space casually. The brand is entering it with the director behind one of the most important Black Olympic history films ever made.
Flipped is her latest. It will not be her last.
