A Quote by Haile Gerima
It's not always expected of filmmakers to do stereotyped stories. But one has to be willing to travel to festivals and hook up with people, engage people intellectually about your passion and the kinds of films that interest you, and sooner or later you find people that have the same affinity that you have.
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I grew up in a family of filmmakers, so I always wanted to make films about animals, especially comical films. Something about animals amuses me. And they have a great mystery. It's the same mystique some people might feel looking at the stars or the ocean.
It is only your passion which takes you forward. So it is my gyaan to all budding singers that keep faith in your passion and prepare yourself, because you will get that opportunity sooner or later, and if you can prove yourself, people will line up for you.
Are you willing to work sixteen hours a day? Rich people are. Are you willing to work seven days a week and five up most of your weekends? Rich people are. Are you willing to sacrifice seeing your family, your friends, and give up your recreations and hobbies? Rich people are. Are you willing to risk all your time, energy and start-up capital with no guarantee of returns? Rich people are.
In Japan, there's a TV series called Jin. It deals with time travel. I like stories about time travel. It's a story about people living in modern day that travel back to the Edo era. Those things really interest me.
I'm drawn to stories about ordinary people who get tangled up in an extraordinary event or idea or emotion. I'm not saying I don't love films about super-people or super-doctors, but my preference is for stories about how we get through this life, what it is to be human, because I'm always struggling with it myself.
In London, there must be thousands of people in the business of making films, whereas in Nottingham or Sheffield, you're probably talking about below a hundred. So there aren't thousands of people scrapping for the same money and for the same jobs. I went out in Nottingham the other night and there's a really beautiful community of people who are really supportive. It's not this back-stabbing thing, high-rent, high-cost, high-tension. Up here we are independent filmmakers and there's a lovely sense of camaraderie.
I think once you have films in certain festivals you begin to have name recognition, and there are possibilities. Especially for independent filmmakers, it's always good to try the international market because it doesn't have the same kind of baggage.
You don't have to travel, but I find extended travel to be a helpful tool for reexamining yourself and the constraints you've artificially placed on your life. It's easy to believe everything has to be done one way if you're always in one place around the same people.
I think that film festivals, we're very often given to understand, are about filmmakers and about films and about the industry of filmmaking. I don't believe that they are, I believe that film festivals are about film audiences, and about giving an audience the encouragement to feel really empowered and to stretch the elastic of their taste.
Im drawn to stories about ordinary people who get tangled up in an extraordinary event or idea or emotion. Im not saying I dont love films about super-people or super-doctors, but my preference is for stories about how we get through this life, what it is to be human, because Im always struggling with it myself.
I've always felt a very strong affinity with Jewish people. Over the years I find I've become very friendly with certain people I've worked with - actors, producers, whatever - and then two or three years later I discover they're Jewish.
There have been a few little films I'd done like that that the studio just decided not to do much with, films like Anywhere but Here [1999] or Jeff, Who Lives at Home [2012]. Thank God people find them later and love them. I'm always really drawn to people who have seen these strange little films.
Sooner or later, fate puts us together with all the people, one by one, who show us what we could, and shouldn’t, let ourselves become. Sooner or later we meet the drunkard, the waster, the betrayer, the ruthless mind, and the hate-filled heart. But fate loads the dice, of course, because we usually find ourselves loving or pitying almost all of those people. And it’s impossible to despise someone you honestly pity, and to shun someone you truly love.
It's true that there are younger people making films, and there are different kinds of films. This has created some attention in what's coming out of Greece, and people like to find a way to name this new ethnic cinema. It's not like there's a movement, or a common philosophy in making these films. They're just things that happened, and now people are paying attention to it.
I try to do stories that make a difference -- stories that affect the way people think, stories that people need to hear -- and usually what drives me is to do stories about people who have no voice, people who have no political power, people who are overlooked by society.
I try to do stories that make a difference - stories that affect the way people think, stories that people need to hear - and usually what drives me is to do stories about people who have no voice, people who have no political power, people who are overlooked by society.
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