Minding Your Movie Business: What’s My Distribution Strategy, a free workshop for emerging filmmakers featuring a special conversation with Yoruba Richen, award-winning documentary filmmaker with work featured on Netflix & HBO, and director of Peacock Original The Rebellious Life Of Mrs. Rosa Parks. Moderated by Isisara Bey.
Transcript:
God will God as the greatest demonstration
[Music]
the thing is you right and as you as you know you
thank you
[Music]
the stories we tell ourselves matter the images we consume matter
Cinema should reflect us all those words by filmmaker Ava Duvernay
speak to the mission of March On and our annual
three-part Workshop series minding your movie business we’re here to pass on the wisdom of
filmed entertainment professionals to those of you who are learning the ropes of the business
so welcome I’m Isa Sarah Bay artistic director of March On our topic is what’s my distribution strategy streaming versus theatrical
releasing and with us today is a prolific award-winning filmmaker and educator
we were excited and proud to screen her 2020 documentary The sit-in Harry
Belafonte hosts The Tonight Show in our Festival three years ago
her newest film The rebellious life of Mrs Rosa Parks just debuted on peacock
her work has been featured on PBS The New York Times opdoc front line digital
the cut and the Smithsonian Channel she is the founding director of the
documentary program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the
City University of New York please welcome Yoruba richin
hey Sis hi how are you very well thank you
so let’s start with a little bit of background how did you get started in filmmaking what was your training and
what inspired you so um let’s see I came to documentary
filmmaking a little uh circuitously I
um actually have a background in theater I grew up in um in New York my mom was a playwright I
did lots of theater I went to Performing Arts High School uh in the city and then in college did lots of theater and
um it wasn’t until but I’d always loved documentary always you know had watched documentary which at that point but
you’d really see just on on PBS um and uh it wasn’t until after I
graduated that I um had a friend and we who had video
experience I actually had no uh no no experience
um we had we made a made a short video for a class and um you know it was at
that point that the camera started getting smaller they were they were called uh consumer cameras at that point
and um they just felt more accessible the technology was more accessible and uh we
made this video about um a chain policy changes in welfare
that were happening at the time and really looking at how this is going to affect a African-American Community uh
in San Francisco where I was where I was and it just was something that clicked I I I you know I remember I didn’t know
you know again I had no experience we were just out there doing it and I
remember editing um you know editing the piece and it was
really a moment of wow this really brings together my love of Storytelling
my um social you know Instinct um uh and and and you know going out and
talking to people and interviewing people in research so it really brought together all of my things that you know
excite me yeah so um I kind of never looked back after that I did another video
um uh that the next year and I decided I was gonna go back to New York I was in
California at the time and I decided I was going to go back to New York and um try to pursue this and my first job
luckily you know gratefully was with the the great Saint Claire born
um who was an amazing documentary filmmaker pioneering and an amazing
Mentor um so uh that was my first job and you
know I moved over to the new size for a little bit in the early 2000s
um but then embarked on making my my first film um and you know yeah we seem to have
some of those things in common I was a theater undergraduate major as well and I worked in California for a while I was
a TV news producer as well so we have a lot of things that seem to push us along
the lines of film and entertainment so as a network news producer and you’re also a writer and producer how have
those skills helped you as a film director yeah I actually think my time at ABC
News I was there for four years I was uh in the um investigative unit and the
thing that was really good about that experience is that um we were producing news uh news
um stories for all of the all of the platforms so everything you know from
from Good Morning America to Nightline so we had we did different lengths you
know from two minute spots to uh longer to you know uh probably the longest war
were like the 20 the 2020 and and the Nightline spots and so that was really good because it gave me that experience
I also um got experience in terms of writing um because you have to script right when
you are working in television news you don’t do that so much in documentary film but uh being able to you know think
you know very early on of what the structure is of the program and what the
structure is going to be of the piece um is really important and I got to work with
um editors and and DPS uh on these stories uh and because it’s you know
news you’re doing it constantly whereas you know as you know sometimes it can take many years to make your first one
so it was a lot of a great experience in and also in research
um and pitching stories uh and also learning from from people I really
soaked up um my you know the the experience of my colleagues I’m soaked up their
experience working with them I started off as an AP um an associate producer and
um and just they had you know they had much more experience in journalism so uh that was all really important in terms
of making documentary films and then in terms of writing I always tell my students and uh really emphasize
that honing your writing skills is very important in filmmaking
um you know oftentimes the first thing that you see yourself as a filmmaker and
certainly uh the other people see whether they be you know uh you’d be writing for Grant you’re writing for
Grants or um or you know what have you that uh you
are writing your film out on paper at first um you know you are putting down your
ideas your thoughts um and then you know putting it together in some kind of structure on paper
um and that is what you have to do for you know for grant writing um and for people to uh get a sense and
understanding of what your idea is and the writing should be sharp it should be
um you know it should be visual it should be clear um so writing is a very important skill
in terms of filming and I can see how that news piece of not just writing in a
crisp way in a clear way and it tells the pictures but being able to do it quickly and making sure you tell the
whole story in a short amount of time so you talked about writing things out how
is that the same or different from storyboarding and narrative films yeah it is different
um my process is you know I am usually writing things out even possibly before
I’m shooting um or even very very early uh in the shoot and that’s usually because of you
know as I said grant writing or um or you know again for excuse me for
your own purposes to uh get your ideas down put it in some kind of structure
and then after you you know are shooting or have shot at least most of you know
your film then um you embark on the process of storyboarding when you know what you
have so um I’m about to do that for a film um that I you know shot last year and
the editor has been looking through the footage and um you know we figuring out I initially
um actually before she started looking through the footage I wrote like a treat
you know and then um she started looking through uh with
you know with my treatment started looking through the footage and now we’re going to come together and putting
together um you know assemblies and now we’re going to come together and and storyboard
um the the film I see so let me get this process straight so you uh think of your
topic you do the research you write it out what you think is going to be kind
of like a treatment make it clear yeah and you usually have to do that for again if there’s funding that you’re
trying to to get and then uh I guess the second part now storyboarding it because you said the
editor looked at the footage it depends on what you get when you shoot exactly so I want something but not get
something to reinforce it right which is why you wait to do the storyboarding because you see and then the
storyboarding is you know a process that happens up until the end and you do an
initial one then you change it and you move it and you see what’s working and what’s not working
so before we move from the Preparatory stage in a sense a lot of our viewers
are filmmaking students so what would you encourage them to do while they are in training you mentioned the importance
of writing and of researching anything else they should be thinking about now while they’re training yeah I mean
um I don’t know if they’re just documentary students or narrative as well and I guess it’s it this goes for
both or they want to do both which many people do um
one thing is to figure out to to figure out what it is you like to do which
aspect of the um which aspect of the process there’s some people uh who you
know decide I want to be cinematographers or I want to be editors or I want to be producers
um and uh it’s good to figure that out like what it is that you like or where
you want to go into and really hone that skill um you know for DPS and for editors
they’re always in demand so they’re always you know you can get hired uh by
you know when you when you um you know when you focus on on that for
um for I would also say as students you know really
um the the the friendships and the networks that you make in school uh with
your fellow with your fellow students with professors are really important I mean
this is a field where it’s really about networking and it’s about who you know
so those are very important um you know relationships absolutely
absolutely they’ll probably be the people you’re working with for the rest of your career exactly or they’ll be in a position to
hire you or fund you absolutely and then I would also say you know really take advantage
of there’s so many film festivals out there there’s so many you know um there’s so many opportunities uh now
online as well to network um so I would really encourage students
to take advantage of of those and see what um you know see what networks there are
in your community um places where you can go to show cuts and get feedback to network to look for
jobs all of that so you just talked about attending film festivals you were
talking about that in terms of places to see examples of work and in network so I’m assuming people shouldn’t wait until
they have something to show to go to a film festival no not at all uh there’s
um so many festivals or you know from hyper local to National festivals that
are all around the country and it’s a great opportunity to see what is out there to see films that are coming out
and most of these festivals will hold you know panels or talkbacks or you know
uh educational um you know specific educational panel so I would definitely recommend taking
advantage of those excellent so as I mentioned earlier we were able a few
years back to show the sit-in Harry Belafonte hosts The Tonight Show which I absolutely loved because it was such a
powerful point in history this week that he subbed for Johnny Carson and all of
the people he brought on that week powerful folks who don’t usually get on television or didn’t at that time so
this may take us back a bit to uh how you put the process together but we’re
going to show the trailer and then when we come back I wanted you to just go through the key points again
of your process when you were putting that together and I would imagine research was very important in that as
well so let’s just take a look at the trailer
um [Applause]
wait a minute Harry Belafonte hosted a week of The Tonight Show what what how did I not know this
Harry Belafonte takes an existing white institution and he turns it into something that represents his world
there are many sides to Perry Belafonte singer actor activist Harry had an
agenda and he had the people to back it up
I feel that we are in the midst of the most critical
period in our nation you see how pivotal this week was that
was the most revolutionary move that mainstream television could have done at
the time [Music] Mike thank you
okay so what are some of the key points of the process you just described from the
selection of the topic through production for making a film like that
so this was an example of a film that um where the producers of the film were
looking for a director um to to make this film the film is based on or inspired by an article that
was written by one of The Producers Joan Walsh uh in the in the nation about this
lost week and they um The Producers Joan and the executive producer Joanne Reed
had an I that had a idea that they wanted to turn that this could be a film that this was you know
um such a you know remarkable week that had been kind of lost to history
um and that could be a film so the first thing that they did even before bringing me on to see if it was a viable film
they knew they needed to have the participation of uh Mr Harry Belafonte
and so that was the first step so sometimes you know even before or you
you can figure out anything you you know that you need uh you know you know you
need uh the person to participate in that we’d have that access people that
have to be part of it and she’s going to be viable so that was the first thing then um and then the other challenge with the
the uh you know with this film and in conceiving of the film is that most of
the footage had been lost from that week wow so that was you know a very early on
okay how are we gonna you know tackle this but the producers came to me
um we met they told me about the week I thought it was incredible something again I’d never heard of but wow what a
lineup from that week right um the fact that it was you know Dr King’s last uh interview televised
interview Robert Kennedy’s um one of his last interviews before he was assassinated this was in 1968 as the
world was you know exploding and Harry Belafonte was the you know Nexus for for
the civilization yes
um you know so it was just such a such a rich a topic that I you know immediately
said yes and um how we uh the process in
um making that film first of all was to bring in a team uh you know who we were
gonna who we wanted to uh to to work with as producers and and editors
um because this is a team making sport a tea making art uh so you know having uh
people that you trust people that you um who you know can help you realize your
vision um of the film is so super important so that was one of the first things I did
is bring on my editor uh and then we started
um going through and then of course the archival person like that is when you’re making these have survival films they
you have to have that person working from the beginning because you’re telling this you’re telling this mostly through archive so
um we started going through the archive uh seeing you know what was in terms of
the people that were on the week so there was the archive of you know of Harry Belafonte and then the people who
are on the week um during that week because we figured one of the ways that we were gonna you
know chiefly tell the story is because we didn’t have the archive from the week but through the archive of there was so
much great Archive of people like Lena Horne and Diane Carroll and uh zero
Marcel and Paul Newman and so we knew we had to tell the story that way
um but that’s a lot of research yes it’s a lot of research absolutely Meanwhile
we’re also still haven’t stopped looking to see if anybody out there has any
footage or anything from that week and I won’t give this part away but we did uh
find something kind of amazing and that was literally and that research involved like talking to people uh who were you
know who were in um you know in in the
um you know archivists um talking to people who had seen that week who had you know who were viewers
at that time um you know really just uh you know
putting out on Facebook uh on social media you know so research involves you
know all these different like ways to go to go about it and we did find some some
really cool uh you know uh some cool stuff and then and that’s all I say
about that you and then it was such a process really
talk about storyboarding we you know went over and over and over
um and of course I’m sorry we did the interviews with uh you know Harry Belafonte with we you know who other
people that you know we thought would be great on screen like Whoopi Goldberg
um who remembered the week and uh some people who are just regular people who remembered the week and then Scholars of
uh of Music um who you know could talk about Aretha
Franklin and her politics and why she would you know why Harry would want her on that week and
um uh Dr King uh who when he was on at that time in 1968 was really kind of a
very um you know a very uh not popular at
that time he had just spoken about the Vietnam War he was uh embarking on the Poor People’s campaign the the younger
militants were criticizing him to someone who could set you know the scene for that
um you know for that that time period so you know figure out and then of course his family we interviewed Gina
bellafonte um so figuring out you know who those interviews are that you’re gonna do that
are gonna tell the story um and then the structure structure structure like what is the structure
um and that was a concept constant and that’s always you know the sort of most challenging part
um and we realized that we needed to tell uh who Harry was and his
significance to open the film um and then uh you know we went through
what the week uh you know who was on that week and their significance in
terms of larger issues that were going on uh and then the aftermath of that
week and what you know what happened um after that and then how do we bring
it to why is this relevant to today so the fact the fact that we still you know
that there’s still very few people of color who are um you know who are hosting late night
um very few women and so that was you know uh that was also what we wanted to
include as well to make this historical uh film relevant to contemporary
audiences so from the moment the producers approached you to when the film was done how much time
well um we started uh in September
of um I’m trying to remember because that we were supposed to Premiere in
um April of 2020 when the pandemic hit right so uh you know we had a
I think we started in September of 2018. I think that’s right
I’m just trying to remember it actually might have been might have
been really an Earnest okay in January of 20 of 2018 that’s what it was January
of 2018 and it took about um you know it took about maybe like
nine months um and then we were at and then you know
of course there’s LOLs as well you know people go so it wasn’t like it was you
know straight as well uh but by uh by
um January or February of 2020 we knew we had gotten into Tribeca
and so we were racing to finish and um we got to we were like almost done we
got to like um we had an online but we got to like the final you know the picture lock when
we found out that Tribeca was going to be can that you know is going to be canceled so then everything obviously
you know the beginning of the pandemic no one knew what was going on um but peacock did pick it up and um and
then we had to finish over that summer by doing the online and the the the you
know the audio mix and all that and it aired in September of 2020. and that’s
when we ran it in September I remember talking to you during this process and we’re almost done we’re not done yet
yeah that’s great exactly yeah so this film The rebellious life of Mrs
Rosa Parks why did you pick her for a subject so um my co-director of the film I
co-directed this film with uh Joanna Hamilton and she had
um she had connected with the author of a book this is my second film that I’ve
made that was based on a book um she had connected with the author of the
book which is the same title the rebellious life of Mrs Rosa Parks and every year this author Gene Theo Harris
puts out a Twitter feed on uh Rosa parks’s birthday
um and it’s a Twitter feed uh listing all the things the facts that you don’t
know about Rosa Parks yeah and that you should am I am I uh my co-director was
reading this Twitter feed and was like whoa I don’t know any of this stuff this is crazy and then found out that there
had been no there hadn’t been any feature documentary about Rosa Parks and
she was flabbergasted and contacted me and told me that as well and I was like
really and I was amazed and intrigued and I read the book and when I read the
book and found out again all this you know this information about Rosa Parks
that we you know both before and after the the bus boycott that we don’t know even though we know know her name so I
just thought it was um you know we decided to Embark you know on making this film and just that
this was really you know time for her story to be told especially in this time
uh where we are finally kind of uncovering uh uh the lives of women in
the movement who you know have historically either been ignored or you know their stories has hadn’t been told
so we were really excited to bring this bring this film to life absolutely we
had Gene Theo Harris speak at the festival around 2014 I think it was yeah the book came out yes and if you’re
right it was so revelatory and then the only other thing I remember about her is in
the middle of the rape of Reese Taylor section on her exactly and that’s when I
that was my first understanding of you know the breath of work that Rosa Parks
was involved in when I wanted to take a moment now and take a look at that trailer
I felt that I had a message but people did not choose to listen to what I was saying we all understand that she sat
down on a bus the narrow Narrative of her just on one day did something couldn’t be further from the truth
she was considered a threat disposing radical views if they could see her
talking about the Republic of new Africa they’re out there with the Panthers then they would understand the railroads of
parks but they might have been just a little frightened
so peacock picked up the film before and this one how did that happen and uh how
did you secure that did you approach them did they approach you what is that after after
um uh Joanna and I decided uh we were gonna make this this film and and Jean
uh uh agreed to you know the option of the book we uh connected with Soledad
O’Brien’s production company um we had connections there and you know
told them what we were doing and they were immediately excited to come on as
executive producers um and so after that we
um pitched to many different places um and uh so we had a deck we had a you
know a Sizzle reel and we pitched it and uh peacock was the one who so when you
said you pitched it to many different places you mean distribution companies yes so uh streamers broadcasters yes we
pitched it to to then we were pitching that was like the you know online when everyone’s pitching on Zoom uh so we
pitched doing everything on Zoom right exactly and peacock was the one that
that picked it up so there are a lot of relatively new streaming platforms out now I mean six
or seven years ago nothing and then since particularly since the pandemic Lots so how is it navigating that whole
world and what do you feel are the pros and cons from back when you did theatrical distribution to this now
easier harder more accessible less what well I think with the
um with the growth of the streamers um you know one the positive thing is
that you have these places looking for more content right so there’s more
potentially more opportunity to uh for filmmakers because they’re looking for
Content they are you know desperate for it
um so that’s a that can be a good thing for sure um I think that the the there are
drawbacks to it as well um you know there can be a uh kind of
flattening out of the kind of content they’re looking for for example like everyone wants True Crime
because that’s what people you know sort of gets really high ratings so you know
but a lot of us you know don’t want to be doing that or want to be doing you know other things besides that and so
that can be an issue um also to the uh the pace in which they
want the films can be uh challenging uh when you’re making the pace so
um they often want these films produced in a very quick manner
um where and that can be really challenging I mean that was challenging with us for for uh Rosa Parks
um you know it takes it takes time to figure out a film it takes time to to make a a good film
um to make a strong film and you know they’re on when when these streamers are
um commissioning you or you know paying for paying for the film they can dictate
you know the timeline in which you make the film I mean there’s some room for negotiations but that can be that can be
challenging and you know but in terms of theatrical and of course everything is sort of Shifting and changing it seems
like it’s always constantly shifting and changing uh in this in this distribution
landscape um but with theaters you know there are some people who
um some filmmakers who are really you know want that theatrical experience for
their film um you know I think there’s there the economics of it I I don’t
um I I don’t think are necessarily like you can you know most people that I don’t think make you know great money on
theatrical um but people want that that some
filmmakers want that theatrical experience of watching it you know with people of it being in a theater
um and you know you could have that to a certain extent with film festivals of course but you know that’s would be one
or two times that the film is being shown um so well I remember when this new Top Gun
came out it was a big conversation because Tom Cruise refused to stream it
he wanted it in a movie theater
and you know at the beginning of the film yeah he literally comes on and says
like you know why it’s so important to you know for this film to be in a movie theater I’ve never seen that before yeah
yeah yeah yeah the only thing close to that I remember was when they would put uh the piracy announcements on Films
right people know how folks were losing jobs from us right right totally
um but yeah so it’s all changing and then of course some of these streamers have now you know shut down in terms of
documentary films CNN is not doing uh out you know is not doing
um documentary production um that they were doing um because of a glut in the market or I
mean I I you know I it’s above my pay grade to to know uh I think it is
probably an evening sort of a um you know leveling out yeah uh of uh
because there was so much that in the last few years and there were you know some films people were paying like
really a gazillion like a lot of money for documentaries and not sure that was
you know made sense in terms of the economics of the whole of the whole thing
um but hopefully when when documentaries were you only heard or saw about them
around the time of the Academy Awards yeah spending a lot of money on it it has grown as a field absolutely it’s
super grown as a field you know and I think that has to do I started seeing that shift
um in kind of the mid 2000s and it was after I had left ABC News and you know
we started seeing all of these news uh organizations really cut back on
investigative on International uh their International bureaus and their investigative bureaus and I think that
documentaries really started to take the place of a lot of that in-depth
um you know uh storytelling which you weren’t seeing on on news anymore I
remember I I always go back to when um Fahrenheit 911 came out and uh Michael
Moore’s film and there was at bat there was like a line right like and I was
like oh my gosh for a documentary like that was to me my what was the turning
point I remember that and POS possibly also because of the subject matter yes
absolutely I mean and the News agencies had failed news organizations had failed in investigating uh you know the the
reasons if there was weapons of mass destruction so yeah it was first that
was about the Columbine shooting right no Fahrenheit 911 was the uh was about 9
11. oh okay okay yes yes yeah Columbine came after that okay yeah you mentioned
the term a while back uh executive producer what’s the difference between an executive producer and a producer
well I mean it really can depend you know you can make these titles
um you know fit to to the needs usually executive producer means either that
they are giving money um and that money could be in terms of you know production or in terms of
development helping it you know um get off the ground and then you know bringing it to a place that can
um give the production money um sometimes it’s just a name that can help with open doors as well
um uh it can also be um it the place that does the uh
production um you know that’s the production house right that has the place where you edit
where you um you know the infrastructure exactly yeah
I was in a producer oh and then just in terms of producer a producer is usually
uh much more you know my is very Hands-On is helping kind of in all
aspects everything from like making sure you know the film is on budget to
um creatively uh helping to shape the film um doing research sometimes they may
have to do interviews too um so the producer is like I mean it’s a it’s a hugely important uh part of the
creative team very much so uh years ago I remember on the music side when uh NYU
started there um music program production program because up until that point you were
either a composer or a musician and that was the only training you got on University level and Clive Davis was
talking about how important the producer is and people didn’t know what that was exactly well that’s really a good point
so once more when we’re talking about streaming as a filmmaker when you’re going into a
negotiation with a streamer what kinds of things are you looking for to include in your deal with them well again it
depends on if this is a um independent film
um that you are you know have already made and you’re selling to them um or they are funding it from the
beginning so if they’re funding it from the beginning you have uh the good part
is that you’re getting the funding because and you don’t have to you know go to 50 different places but they also
will have kind of final creative say so you have to figure out you know if so
are you more of an employee of them on that employee no it’s not an employee
um that has different sort of legal terms but you’re a um you’re a uh
director for hire in some cases uh you know in this Rosa case we’re bringing
the film to them so it’s not like they were going out looking for director and you know which I’ve done that too
um so it’s a little bit different um but uh you know that’s one of the things that you have to to figure out in
terms of the creative um you know what you’re willing to let go of in terms of the creative process
uh not the creative process in terms of the the final say uh if it’s something that they’re funding now when you are
selling a film that you’ve already made or that is mostly made um that’s different and you can
negotiate terms you want to figure out what rights you want to keep on keep
hold of so um you know if it’s a uh Netflix or Hulu or what have you
you know they’ll get the uh the U.S rights which are kind of the biggest rights but you know if you want to keep
the international rights or they are going to get the international rights uh
you know and then what that means for you financially how that’s going to affect you know what you’re being paid educational rights
um if you want to do theatrical as we talked about so it’s really about negotiating what the rights are that
you’re going to keep as a filmmaker versus um what they’re going to pay you to take
got it okay so your top three do’s and top
three don’ts for all of these emerging filmmakers around the process any aspect
of it so this can be General where do people make the most mistakes
okay um okay so do’s and don’ts so the dues I would say
um Follow Your Passion uh if you’re passionate about a story
um about um you know telling a story um follow it let that guide you it can
really uh it really can produce resources and um and you know get other
people excited about your project so Follow Your Passion uh figure out how you’re going to make a living because
while you’re following your passion you need to get paid and you need to eat so figure that out
um you know and that’s why I always say you know to my my students
and other young people like you know if you are interested if you like editing or if you like being a cinema you know
shooting um you can you can get hired that way um producing you can get hired as well
so figure out how you’re going to make or if you need to have another job you know that’s outside of the industry as
you are you know building your career um and then thirdly I would say
um mentorship is super important as well so find a mentor um someone who you can learn from who
you can help with their projects and Learn by doing this is really a an
industry where you learn a profession where you learn by by doing uh and then don’t I would say don’t let the fear
consume you don’t let that little person that little devil in your head uh tell you you know that you can’t do it
um so don’t let the let the fear uh overtake you
um don’t be afraid of risks which is the same thing I mean I left ABC and I
um started on a journalism fellowship and I decided not to go back and that’s how I started my first film and I
decided not to go back to ABC because I wanted to uh really you know finish
figure out how to like make this film and to be a documentary filmmaker and it
was very risky I didn’t have a job um so uh so you stocked up on the ramen
noodles and yes exactly um so yeah so don’t be afraid to re to
take risks and um let’s see
um mistakes people make students make or
emerging filmmakers make that you’ve seen well I think that you can
um if you’re making your first film you really want to find out um you want to do your research around
what else is out there on the topic um because it’s fine to to do it even if
to to do it even if the topic has been done before because your vision is going to be different and but that you got to
figure that out you got to figure out you know what else is out there what else has been done on this topic and how
you’re going to do it differently and if you don’t do that I think I’ve seen where people uh can get you know
they get they’re not getting the access that they need or they’re not getting the the support because they’re not
figuring out how what the film that they are gonna uh you know the film that they
are doing is different from what’s already out there okay what you working on next so I am
um working on a film about reparations um and we’re following uh uh stories of
personal reparations that are happening between descendants of enslavers and descendants of enslaved as the national
conversation for reparations moves forward in a really interesting kind of
uh unprecedented way um so we’re starting the edit on that
and then I also have a film about the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 which is
uh the most considered the most successful political Insurrection uh where a
um interracial government local government in Wilmington North Carolina which was a very
um you know wealthy uh or um uh was a very uh had a lot of
African-American businesses and interracial living happening uh uh
and the um the blacks the the Republicans the
who were who were black and the uh populist white Farmers created an
alliance and a government uh to uh that was a
um that was challenging the Democratic Elite they were the Democrats at that point and white supremacist literally a
white supremacist um uh created a campaign to take over
the government uh where you know black people were in positions of power take over the government
um and take back these positions and then uh had a Massacre where they ran
African-Americans out of the city um and uh and killed them and it was and
then instituted uh voter you know suppression so black people could not vote
um you know as we know that story and there wasn’t a there was not a elected
official from North Carolina a black elected official from North Carolina uh you know until like the 1990s or
something um so it was the end of reconstruction um and the beginning of you know uh
segregation that was and and and other cities like uh that where they had these
insurrections or where they had these massacres really looked at at Wilmington as a model yeah there is so much in the
history of African Americans in this country that is right for many of these
stories gosh I know I know yeah yeah you know and not just documentary I mean
there’s some you know especially because you know there’s not archive or we don’t
have um you know there’s so many stories that are ripe for fiction treatments so now
of of our history I mean it’s yeah it’s kind of incredible and you think about
it well thank you so much for joining us on minding your movie business and everyone
don’t forget you can see the rebellious life of Mrs Rosa Parks on peacock thank
you for joining us thank you thank you for having me next month on April 20th our next
minding your movie business Workshop topic is new trends in the film business
Los Angeles entertainment attorney Craig Emanuel will be your host visit our
website at www.mowff.org for more details so happy
you joined us I’m Isa Sarah Bay march on
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thank you
