![]() ![]() I changed careers pretty late so I think that makes me even more grateful so I don’t take it for granted. You know, I started making films really late in life, when most people had already decided what they were going to do. I feel that in all those moments, stories come to my mind and I feel excited about what I get to do and I feel fortunate that I get to do it. Whether it's looking at art, whether it's reading, which is also art, whether it's just sitting around talking to someone, whether it's taking a walk in nature. Everyone that you come across has some story, something that has changed who they are and that could illuminate something for you. The world is just alive, it's full of colours, full of experiences and everyone has a story. One of my family members used to say, “If you're bored, you're boring”. Where do you find most of your inspiration and is there anything you tend to go back to? Like you said storytelling comes in all forms, and so does inspiration. I think storytelling comes in all forms and I'm fortunate that I get to tell the stories I want to tell. Indian people, Nazis, Black folk in the American South and the ways in which they are all braided together. So whether that comes out as A Wrinkle In Time with a Black girl travelling the universe searching for her father, or whether it comes out as When They See Us, the story of injustice of five boys who go up against the whole system to write their name or whether it's something like Origin, which contemplates humanity overall. ![]() I'm interested in my brothers and sisters around the world and our interconnectedness to the spaces around us. I'm interested in history, I'm interested in community, I'm interested in solidarity. I'm not a director for hire, so I don't go around saying give me work, I write things that I want to express as an artist that I want to share and the things that interest me. No, I don't feel a burden, I don’t feel a weight, I do what I want to do. You’re a seasoned director and a lot of your projects speak directly to and for the Black community, do you feel the weight of responsibility as a Black creative? Within the film, I felt Isabel represents the Black creative that feels they have a duty to speak on every issue or injustice that occurs within our community. I just invite people to think about it like that as opposed to trafficking in trauma. Look at the pictures, watch the movie and know what's going on and empower myself in that way. I prefer to know, I prefer to read the book, talk to my elders, and understand the theories. I think that we've been taught to or asked to ignore the things that really affect us, and call it by something that allows us to put it away as opposed to walking into a dark room, turning on the lights, looking around and saying there's nothing to fear here because I have the knowledge and knowledge is power. ![]() But to watch our ancestors on a slave ship, to watch white people watching the lynching of a Black man, not even the lynching itself like the neck-breaking, you don't see any of that but you're watching the faces of white folks as they commit a crime. ![]() You hear bullets going off, you hear blood, people are falling down dead and that's ok. This happens when we see killing and murder unattached to emotion for no reason, like in John Wick or whatever. I really believe that we have been done a disservice by being told and believing that real violence and trauma isn't violence and trauma. Throughout your career you’ve dealt with heavy and traumatic incidents within the Black community, is this how you’re healing yourself and the community by making sure we face it head-on? In the film Isabel says we can’t escape trauma by running away from it, we have to confront it to release ourselves. Firstly, congratulations on the film, you leave the screen with questions in your mind for days if not weeks on end. ![]()
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