Click here to listen to the interview. RaMell Ross’ extraordinary documentary, HALE COUNTY, THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING is both a deeply moving examination of seemingly ordinary African-American people living in a small town in Alabama, and an accessible example of experimental filmmaking at its most aesthetically assured. When I spoke with Ross on November 23,… Read More »
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST — Julie Dash Interview
When Julie Dash decided to make DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST, she had more than just a business that didn’t welcome either African-American or women directors, she had to contend with Hurricane Hugo rearranging the locations she had chosen for her groundbreaking film. Undeterred, she used one of those changes to her advantage. That was one… Read More »
HOLLYWOOD BEFORE THE CODE: SEX! CRIME! HORROR! with Elliot Lavine, Tourguide
If you had to sum up what it’s like to talk with Elliot Lavine, cinema programmer extraordinaire, scholar of film history and engaging raconteur, it might be the moment when an emergency vehicle went by the room where I was interviewing him on February 17, 2106. While ruminating on studio policies about film restoration, he… Read More »
LAST DAY OF FREEDOM — Dee Hibbert-Jones & Nomi Talisman Interview
Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman are first-time filmmakers whose short film, LAST DAY OF FREEDOM, has been short-listed for the Oscars™. The hand-drawn animation tells the story of Bill Babbitt and his beloved brother Manny, two men who were let down by the system in which they placed their trust. When Bill realizes that Manny… Read More »
Why BLACKBIRD Soars
I have rarely been as moved by a film as I was by BLACKBIRD. A thoughtful, poetic, compassionate film that uses truth, humor, and tragedy into an elegiac story that transcends the specifics of its plot, transmuting them into a timeless story of love, acceptance, and moving on. When I spoke with director/co-writer Patrik-Ian Polk… Read More »
Stephen Winter Re-discovers JASON AND SHIRLEY
Click here to listen to the interview. When Shirley Clarke made PORTRAIT OF JASON, she was doing more than exercising her creative impulse. The Oscar™-winning director had been all but shut out of Hollywood, and returned to New York to pursue a career as an indie filmmaker rather than deal with being marginalized by the… Read More »
Lacey and Peggy Schwartz Talk Their LITTLE WHITE LIE
Lacey Schwartz wasn’t going to direct the documentary about her life growing up in a Jewish family and discovering that her dark skin wasn’t the result of a Sicilian ancestory, and that the man who had raised her was not her biological father. Every director she approached told her that such a personal story about… Read More »
TALK TO ME
“Wake up, God damn it!” is how TALK TO ME begins and that’s exactly what is going to happen to its lead characters, the people in their orbit, and the entire city of Washington D.C. The story may be formulaic, albeit based on actual events, but stars Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor take charge of… Read More »
Kasi Lemmons Says TALK TO ME
There is a piquant contrast between the calm, almost nurturing personality of filmmaker Kasi Lemmons and that of radio pioneer, Petey Green, the bombastic subject of her film, TALK TO ME. But, as I discovered when I talked to her on June 5, 2007, there is the same drive, the same commitment, and the same passion for what she… Read More »