Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm a filmmaker to my bones.
I was a publicist for other people's movies.
I usually make films with $2 and a paper clip.
Film school was a privilege I could not afford.
If your dream is only about you, it's too small.
All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.
Nonviolence is pretty ballsy, pretty advanced weaponry.
Every filmmaker imbues a movie with their own point of view.
I want to be an old lady, with my cane, shouting, 'Action!' and 'Cut!'
You know, often films that are deemed positive, nobody wants to see them.
For a film to be made is a small miracle. And sometimes it's a large one.
I think I am a little jealous of women who have great girlfriends as adults.
Film is a mirror. I want to see more filmmakers. We all want to see ourselves.
I think for female filmmakers a big issue is making their second and third films.
It's not enough even to have one black Barbie... because black women are not a monolith.
I love to see people just being regal in their own skin; it's just when they know who they are.
I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.
I'm a prison abolitionist because the prison system as it is set up is just not working. It's horrible.
It's emotional for artists who are women and people of color to have less value placed on our worldview.
Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.
Filmmakers need to realize that their job isn't done when they lock picture. We must see our films through.
The studios aren't lining up to make films about black protagonists, black people being autonomous and independent.
There's a belonging problem in Hollywood. Who dictates who belongs? The very body who dictates that looks all one way.
I wish I could be the black woman Soderbergh, and put the camera on my shoulder and shoot beautifully while I directed.
If you're doing something outside of dominant culture, there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.
My mother is from Compton, California, but my father is from Hayneville, Alabama, and that's less than 20 miles from Selma.
'Diversity' is like, 'Ugh, I have to do diversity.' I recognize and celebrate what it is, but that word, to me, is a disconnect.
There's really no precedent for someone like me gaining clout in the space that I'm in - a black woman directing films in Hollywood.
Diversity is not one in the room. Diversity is not two in the room. Diversity is not three in the room. True diversity is half the room.
When we're talking about diversity, it's not a box to check. It is a reality that should be deeply felt and held and valued by all of us.
When I'm marketing a film, whether its mine or someone else's, I work with a great deal of strategy and elbow grease until the job is done.
'Queen Sugar' is a drama about family. It's something that allows us to be ourselves and see the ways that we interact with our own families.
I think that women definitely have a special bond as friends that is hard to describe to men, and we don't often see that portrayed narratively.
As a filmmaker, you put the film out there, and you just want it to be okay. You don't want to let people down; you don't want to embarrass yourself.
Positive characterizations are complex characterizations. That's all we need to know. They shouldn't be saccharine. They shouldn't feel like medicine.
As long as you're in an environment where the worth of the project isn't based on the project but what its predecessors did, it's not truly inclusive.
There's something very important about films about black women and girls being made by black women. It's a reflection as opposed to an interpretation.
I like silence. Aesthetically, I feel strangled by the fast cutting and a wall of sound. And I think showing black people thinking onscreen is radical.
I really admire Werner Herzog and Spike Lee. They're amazing documentarians. If you took away all the narratives, they'd just be amazing documentarians.
Why do we always have to see black people in hindsight? Why are the Hollywood movies always historical? What about the contemporary image of black people?
I just don't think there's a lot of support for the woman's voice in cinema, and it becomes really difficult to raise that money and start again every time.
I think that black people making art, women making art, and certainly black women making art is a disruptive endeavor - and it's one that I enjoy extremely.
I spent a whole 12 years helping other people tell their stories as a publicist, so just to be able to go and write and get behind the camera, that's my thing.
In documentaries, there's a truth that unfolds unnaturally, and you get to chronicle it. In narratives, you have to create the situations so that the truth will come out.
All black women aren't sassy, loud, difficult, or subservient. We are, in fact, very complex and very diverse, living very complex and diverse lives. That point cannot be made enough.
When I was out promoting 'Selma,' I became aware of so many other films that ought to be getting distribution. And this is a problem I can do something about because of my experience.
I don't understand the iPhone. I just don't get it. Don't ya'll have to write serious emails throughout the day? How can you possibly manage detailed missives on a phone with no keys?
When we say there's a dearth of women directors, it's not that there's a lack of women who direct: it's a lack of opportunities and access for women to direct and be supported in that.
Especially when we're dealing with issues of race, culture, identity, and history, the time has passed for the 'white savior' holding the black person's hand through their own history.
I want more girls to be able to see themselves behind the camera creating images we all enjoy, and I want to call attention to the fact that women directors are here all over the world.