Although most moviegoers are drawn to the main story on the screen, Knowles discovered her passion through the DVD extras that play after the credits. “I discovered this thing called director’s commentaries. I thought it was so cool—a different way of watching the movie,” she says. When one director quipped, “I know nobody’s listening to this commentary right now, just film nerds,” Knowles recalls thinking, “I am.”

Now a documentary filmmaker, Knowles studied film and psychology in college, which helped her understand both narrative and emotion. “It felt as though all the big, famous directors were men, so I couldn’t quite see myself in them. It felt really intimidating to get into the field,” she says. “But I was really good at writing research papers, and documentaries felt like a fusion of that and my passion for film.”

Her latest project is Harlem Ice, a Disney+ docuseries about a competitive Black girls’ figure skating team. “It was both in my wheelhouse and a departure, in the best way,” she says. “We had my camera guy skating on the ice with the girls. It became this joyful, music-filled journey.” She also recently directed for HBO’s Eyes on the Prize. Up next: the Netflix docuseries Katrina: Come Hell and High Water.

Her longtime mentor, Emmy-winning filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir, noticed Knowles’ potential early on. “She’s really great at building trust,” Gandbhir says. “She leads with humanity.”

Knowles thinks the documentary field, historically dominated by white men, is changing. “More and more women and people of color keep coming into the industry because they’re just doing cool stuff,” she says. “And it’s paying off.”