A Quote by Zoe Lister-Jones

Because there are so many factors when considering the potential impacts of GMOs on our health and environment, we wanted to make a film that could unpack complex subject matter, while taking the audience on an entertaining ride. It is a very powerful tool because it allows viewers to understand the nature of these very complicated issues in a digestible format, and then hopefully engage in a dialogue about them in their respective homes and communities.
I feel it’s important to talk about the complex issues affecting us. And these are complex issues. I think it’s insulting to an audience to make them sit and watch a film and then give them a message in one sentence.
One of the issues I think is very important, in many communities of color, there's a stigma about mental health. We find that the shaming that comes from acknowledging that one may have some issues that may relate to mental health, often people are not willing to go and seek additional help because of that shaming or that cultural stigma that's associated with it. And I think that we need to make this change in how people approach mental health.
[It] is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. […] The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining. (87)
The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: "Is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey, don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we kill those people.
Everything is roughness, except for the circles. How many circles are there in nature? Very, very few. The straight lines. Very shapes are very, very smooth. But geometry had laid them aside because they were too complicated.
I believe the medium of film is one of the most powerful tools in the modern era to create positive social change. It has the ability to put big, complex, and controversial subjects across in an easy-to-understand and digestible form. It has the power to change someone's perspective on the world in a very short space of time - film has the power to change the world itself.
You can change your tomorrow if you do something today. Few people understand how the way you live today impacts your tomorrow. Today is the only time we have within our grasp, yet many people let it slip through their fingers, recognizing neither its value nor potential. If we want to do something with our lives, then we must make today matter, because that's where tomorrow's success lies.
I did not make this a long film for its own sake. I wanted to make an entertaining film and offer it out there for those who want to see it. If word of mouth suggests there is an audience out there, hopefully their cinema will show it.
I think that the potential for homegrown terrorist attacks is something that we have to be very concerned about, because, in many respects, it's harder to detect when you have an independent actor who may be living in our midst, in our own communities.
I hope that audiences respond really positively. I think it's a very intense, entertaining film [The Last King of Scotland], because you're brought in on a fun ride, and slowly you fall into it as James [actor James McAvoy's character, Dr. Nicholas Garrigan] does. Nicholas is like the audience. I think it's a good ride for people. And you learn something, as well.
If you think of data as kind of an x-ray of our soul, it's this window into our minds that the company has possessed. It's a very, very powerful x-ray for them to hold because the more that you understand about somebody, the easier it is to manipulate them.
I do a little improv in my shows. Kind of like our movie, I'll do beats and ideas of dialogue, but I think there's less pressure because it's a live show. If you mess up, the audience laughs because we don't really know what we're doing. But as far as shooting, that was very scary, trying to make a point and drive the film. It definitely helped improvising.
I mean this is not like a very dry political book. This is - it was a very quick and entertaining and interesting read because there were so many stories, at least for me, of real women and - and sort of the issues that they face, and her commitment to wanting to help them.
Because GMOs aren't labeled, it's very hard to prove causality in terms of health effects. It's even more difficult because the seeds are patented, so independent researchers have a hard time gaining access to them.
I don't approach my movies with a target audience in mind. I try to make something that's true to the subject matter as much as possible, while still being entertaining and fun.
Some movies I make for myself. I just sort of make them for myself. I do that sometimes when the subject matter is very sensitive and very personal and I really can't imagine I'm an audience.
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