1204 flm prod feature profile middle of nowhere

7/29/2019 1204 Flm Prod Feature Profile Middle of Nowhere

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LOVEon the

outside

Middle of Nowhere writer/director Ava DuVernay

PHOTOB

Y

LIZ

O.

BAYLEN

The paroled convict stands at the gate,

a dufel bag in his hand. He and the

guard exchange words. Maybe one

o them cracks a tired joke Id say Seeyou later, but I hope that I dont. Maybe

the guard tries to ofer a heartelt lie lesson.

Regardless, the gate swings open, and the

prisoner walks through it to his reedom. His

crew might be there to pick him up, or per-

haps he just takes the bus. A new lie awaits.

Many films have opened with these im-

ages, but not Ava DuVernays Middle of No-

where. The writer/directors second eature,

or which she won the Best Director Award

at this past years Sundance Film Festival,

is dramatically centered around the person

missing rom the above scene: the woman

the convict has let behind. A compelling

Emayatzy Corinealdi plays Ruby, a med

student (and cineaste) who has put hereducation on hold while she earns money

to pay the lawyers who will help her hus-

band, Derek (Omari Hardwick), cut short

his eight-year sentence. Shes the one who

takes the bus, joining other wives on the

brie, strained visits that are no substitute

or a real marriage. But as the parole hear-

ing approaches, theres news that both

jeopardizes Dereks release and challenges

the devotion Ruby has shown to him. Add

in the flirtations o Brian (David Oyelowo),

an afable bus driver, and theres more than

AVA DUVERNAY won the Best Director prize at Sundance

for her second dramatic feature, Middle of Nowhere, a heartfelt

and complex tale of a woman discovering her own identity while

fighting for the parole of her convict husband. A writer, director

and also distributor, DUVERNAY is releasing the film through

a partnership between her own African-American Film

Festival Releasing Movement and Participant Media.

Producer NEKISA COOPER learns more.


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46 FILMMAKER FALL 2012

enough in Rubys world and DuVernays

film to passionately replace that ex-con

drama weve seen so many times before.

Indeed, Middle of Nowhere is all about

what DuVernay describes in the interview

below as the interior life of black women,

and, as she notes, thats a subject matter theAmerican studio system blatantly ignores.

DuVernay has been trying to make Middle of

Nowhere since 2006, finally doing it indepen-

dently after Hollywood turned its back. Lead-

ing up to the film for her have been a series

of documentary shorts and features; a debut

narrative feature, I Will Follow; and, of course,

AFFRM the African-American Film Festi-

val Releasing Movement. Capitalizing on her

experience working as a feature film publicist

and marketer, DuVernay launched AFFRM to

connect underserved black audiences with the

films that have played so well on the black fes-

tival circuit. AFFRM has so far released films

including Alrick Browns Kinyarwanda and An-

drew Dosunmus Restless City, and with Middle

of Nowhere it gains a powerful distribution

partner, Participant, who came on board to en-

sure that the film reaches the widest possible

audience.

To interview DuVernay we asked Nekisa

Cooper, producer of Dee Rees Pariah, who is

herself grappling with the same issues of au-

thentic content, audience building and new

models for independent features in her ownwork. Middle of Nowhere opens in theaters

October 12.

It is such an honor to be interviewing you

right now. You are an idol to many of us who

are trying to figure out how to Are you

kidding? Im just following in the footsteps

of you guys from last year, doing the exact

same thing. [Laughs]

No, youre taking it to a whole different level.

You have a model. [Laughs] We just made a

film, but you have a model. Thats different.

Well, I appreciate the good energy.

Im going to start by asking you some ques-

tions about your background. I heard a ru-

mor that you were an emcee back in the day.

[Laughs] That is true. When I was a teenagerI used to hang out with my friends in South

Central at this place called The Good Life. It

was a hip-hop mecca, post-riots, post-upris-

ing in Los Angeles a place for kids to gather

every Thursday night. Everybody would get

their time on the mic. It was an Apollo-like

atmosphere where you would get food and

oral praise. That was really the first glimpse

I got of what an artists life was like. I dont

come from a family of artists, and so that ex-

perience was very communal, very collabora-

tive. I loved the camaraderie championing

people and being interested in their projects.

And so, its been nice to see that evolution in

me from a teenager who was rioting in the

streets to [a woman] making films and still

being so happy to watch somebody else do it

well. You know what I mean?

I hear you. So now its 1999 and youre work-

ing in publicity. How did you get to the point

in 2006 where you made your short, Saturday

Night Life? After [graduating from] UCLA,

I started working at Fox and some PR firms.

I really loved PR firms as opposed to [work-

ing] in-house at a studio. I didnt like the idea

of working on two or three projects for the

whole year it wasnt enough for me. Theagency life provided me with the opportunity

to work on multiple projects and always in

different stages of their campaigns. In 99, I

started my own firm and [went] on the sets

of great filmmakers like Michael Mann, Spiel-

berg, Bill Condon and Eastwood. [I was] trav-

eling the world with these guys [attend-

ing] their junkets and red carpets, observing

them and hearing their stories. I was the

ultimate film lover, and some time in there I

started to make a mental transition, an emo-

tional transition, from the idea of loving filmsto making films. I started tinkering on screen-

plays and then in 2006, over the Christmas

holiday, I just decided to make something. I

took six grand and said, Just let this be my

film school. I didnt know what I was doing,

but I made a short and, from there, tried to

keep shooting as much as possible. Thats the

only way I was going to learn since I didnt

have the time and money to stop my career

and go to film school. I had to just figure it

out in another way and cobble together a film

school experience for myself. So by talking to

filmmakers while handling their publicity, I

was learning from them. And by making stuff

I was making mistakes. And thats what film

school is, right?

Were you thinking about making features

back then as well? Yes. Around 2003 I had

written this script, Middle of Nowhere. Gina

Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Bythewood

were good friends and clients at the time

and said, We really love this. We want to

produce it. So we went out and we attached

Sanaa Lathan and Idris Elba and shopped itin the traditional way that you did in 2003

when you were in black Hollywood. Youd go

to the studios and it was, Oh, wow, great

script, but we dont make movies about the

interior life of black women. [Laughs] If you

want to make that, make that, and then we

might be interested in an acquisition, right?

Thats what we heard everywhere. Gina and

Reggie were great. They got me into these

rooms. The bottom line was the rooms. They

werent ready then, and they still aint ready

now for this type of story.

By talking to flmmakers whilehandling their publicity, I was learningrom them. And by making stu, I was

making mistakes. And thats what flmschool is, right?

HOW THEY DID IT

Production Format

Digital.

Camera

Sony F35.

Film/Tape Stock

Digital.

Editing System

Final Cut Pro.

Color Correction

DaVinci Resolve at Nice Dissolve,

Brooklyn.


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For sure. Thats just not what they do, and

the sooner we realize that, the better off

well be. And so, the process was me real-

izing that. In 2006, just frustrated with two

years of pitching to closed doors, I said, I

need to make something. My life is slip-

ping away over here. So I took a very small

amount of money and said, Im going to

make a documentary about my friends and

this movement thats really little-known.

So I made this doc [This is the Life] thats all

about the experience of being a teenager

and rhyming with this group of artists. And

as a publicist and marketer, I publicized andmarketed it. As I was doing that, I [thought],

Let me book it in a couple of theaters. It

just happened so organically that I was like,

Wow, Im just self-distributing this film

right now. It wasnt even intentional. So

the bug kind of hit, and it triggered me be-

ing approached by some networks to direct

other music and culture documentaries. [I

thought,] Let me take some of this money

Ive made from these films and try to make

a narrative, and that was all that followed.

So This is the Life, to My Mic Sounds Nice

to Essence Presents: Faith in 2010, now to

what you just completed, the Venus and Sere-

na piece for ESPN [Venus VS] how has your

evolution as a [narrative] filmmaker changed

as a function of the documentary work that

youve been doing?I love the documentary

space, and I love going back and forth be-

tween the two. Its a completely different

kind of storytelling, but it is still storytelling

at its core. One really informs the other. The

tools that Ive learned and picked up while

shooting the narratives [are] strengthening

the work on these documentaries, I think.

Youre not going to always have your budgetfor the narratives, you know what I mean? I

feel like that ability to go back and forth is

giving me the opportunity to always stay

working, which is my goal right now to

create and sustain a certain momentum.

Docs, narratives, to me, theyre all [using]

the same storytelling tools.

Thats very much Spike [Lees] philosophy

too. A story is a story is a story. And talking

about Spike, we have to spend a moment

talking about the folks that have come be-

fore. Who inspires you from back in the day?

For me, particularly as a UCLA alumnus,

its Haile Gerima and Charles [Burnett]. To

be acquainted [with their work] as a cine-

phile and black student at a time when

there was unrest in our city, that harkened

back to the time when they were making

their films, when there was also unrest. A

couple of years ago, I was sitting down with

our cinematographer, Bradford Young, and

he showed me a film of Hailes Id never

seen, Ashes and Embers. I could never get

my hands on that one, and it changed a lot

for me in terms of whats possible and what

were saying with our films. And so, yeah, Iwould say Haile, Julie [Dash] and Charles

big, big influences and inspirations.

Lets spend a moment to talk about your col-

laboration with Bradford Young, and what

that has meant to your world as a fi lmmaker.

Because I am limited in my technical knowl-

edge having not gone to film school, it was

really important for me to have someone I

could talk with about the images on emo-

tional terms, in [terms of] colors and feel-

ings. I told him when we met, I cant tellP

HOTOBY

HENNY

GARFUNKEL

Actors David Oyelowo, Omari Hardwick and Emayatzy Corinealdi with Middle of Nowhere writer/director Ava DuVernay


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48 FILMMAKER FALL 2012

you which lens is going to give me what Im

thinking of in my head. I can tell you how

I want it to feel and when thats not it. But

I am not going to be able to talk to you in

[a technical] way because I dont have that

[background]. What I have is my heart and

my head and my intention and what Ive

written and what I want to say and show.

And he was able to work with me in that

way. I learned a lot from him, but I also was

very clear that I didnt want to learn these

[technical] things. Ive been obsessed with

filmmakers who paint their films in a lot of

different ways, you know? Their relation-

ships with their d.p.s run the gamut. Some

filmmakers who do have that knowledge

dont even collaborate with their d.p.s in

that way because theyre just painting a pic-

ture from a more emotional place. I saw thatearly on, firsthand, from a couple of great,

master filmmakers on their sets, and I kind

of forgave myself for starting to make films

without having all of that [technical knowl-

edge]. Bradford really helped me get there in

terms of saying, Its okay, this is valid.

Lets talk about AFFRM. You have a distribu-

tion company, and with Middle of Nowhere,

you took it a step further by making a deal

with Participant to partner on the domestic

distribution. This is incredible. Can you talk

about this model that youre building, and what

it means for filmmakers, like myself, and oth-

ers who are coming up?AFFRM was an idea

that really came out of that first documentary

experience, This is the Life the self-distribu-

tion of that, and the festivals [I worked for] as

a marketing and publicity person. AFFRM is a

very simple idea, which struck me as I was on

the festival circuit with This is the Life, going

to all these beautiful black film festivals. Hav-

ing been a publicist, I had put films into Urban

World and PanAfrican Film Festival as part of

my marketing strategy. But Id never really

gone and sat down as a filmmaker and inter-

faced with the filmmakers and festival lead-

ers. And so, I traveled all around the country,

to Seattle, to Atlanta, to Boston. There was

just one common thread these [festivals]

were led by passionate, market-driven black

people who cared about our images. Theres

no other reason to do it if youre not making

money, [Laughs] you know what I mean?

And there was a disconnect between [these

festival directors and the goal of] helpingthese festival films be seen again. Because

theres no acquisitions frenzy around Urban

World, right? Our films are playing there and

theyre not going on to anything. Hopefully a

DVD release. And so, the idea from having

distributed my film myself and meeting all

these amazing people gelled into the sense

of, What can we all do together? I have this

certain set of tools, you guys have a certain

set of tools, what if we all got together and re-

leased films? The distribution parts are very

easy for me well, not easy, but in terms of

GO BACK & WATCH

PARIAH Dee Rees 2011 poetic portrait

of a teen coming out as a lesbian and

a poet also marked the emergence of

a new generation of African-American

women filmmakers.

MONSTERS BALL Marc Forsters

2001 drama weaves together a com-

plex emotional knot of people whose

lives connect around a state prison,with Heath Ledger, Billy Bob Thornton

and Halle Berry (who won an Best

Actress Oscar for her portrayal of an

executed convicts wife).

THE FARM: LIFE INSIDE ANGOLA

PRISON Jonathan Stack, Liz Garbus

and Wilbert Rideaus 1998 documen-

tary captured the reality of life inside

Louisiana State Penitentiary, the larg-

est U.S. maximum security prison.

P

H O T O

C O U R T E S Y O F A F F R M

Omari Hardwick and Emayatzy Corinealdi in Middle of Nowhere


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figuring out the marketing and the publicity,

which is 80 percent of distribution, I already

knew how to do that at a very high level. That

part wasnt hard. But the other 20 percent

was really hard making relationships with

the [theater] chains, getting them to under-

stand that it is not just me, Ava, doing a one-

off film but that I Will Followwill be the first

of what I hope will be many films throughAFFRM. I had to create relationships with ex-

hibitors and my fellow distributors the same

way I created relationships with the press in

1995. And so, the first release was I Will Fol-

lowin March of 2011 and this is now,Middle of

Nowhere. By the time your piece hits, we will

have announced the growth of AFFRM with

new ancillary deals. Were going to take the

films from the theatrical space, which was

our sole focus at our launch, full through the

ancillary pathways VOD, DVD, a retail la-

bel, etc. So thats exciting.

Yes, indeed. The producer Karin Chien and I

have been having a lot of conversations lately

about international sales for black and brown

films. How do you feel about the international

sales piece of this? Have you brought on an

international sales agent? I can say from my

vantage point, Im a bit frustrated. We soldPa-

riahs international rights to Focus, and theres

not been very much movement on that front.

In spite of their best efforts, theyve not found

international outlets for the film beyond Can-

ada. Their usual international partners seem

to be in the same space most of our domestic

industry is about black and brown film over-

seas no international sales potential. And,my question is, if hip hop and fashion and other

things that evolved from our culture can sell,

why cant this content? Thank you. You said

youre frustrated; Ill say that Im infuriated.

I was trying to be diplomatic. [Laughs] Its

some bullshit. There is ineptitude, ignorance

and arrogance at a level that is astounding. It

is a groupthink and a group failure. For Mid-

dle of Nowhere, we went into Sundance with

not as many jitters as a lot of our counter-

parts because I wasnt looking for a distribu-

tion deal. I went in saying, Were opening in

October, and if theres a like-minded partner

who will come with us and do it, thatd be

awesome. And if not, were opening in Oc-tober. It would have been really disingenu-

ous of me to create a distribution company

so early on and not put out my own film

that is getting so much attention through it.

And it was a beautiful experience because

there was a flattering array of offers, none

of which were right for us. Will every film I

It needs to be part o our DNA asflmmakers to know what the world islike outside o our set, to understand

what the business o flmmaking is. Tatsmy big fst in the air.

see page 78


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78 F IL MM AK ER FALL 2012

TOUCHDOWN DANCEfrom page 35

That must be great as a perormer, right?

COOPER: It is, especially because youre

almost dancing. Im someone whos always

aware o where the camera is. I actually love

that part o filmmaking, as opposed to be-

ing on stage. I love it. So, when you start

to dance with the camera operator to therhythm o the scene, its very exciting.

It is when it becomes like a unit. COOPER:

Yes. And we actually did have a dance scene

at the end o the movie, which we had no

time to shoot. It was ucking crazy. Theres

400 other actors as the audience, and were

sitting there trying to put this thing together.

You had your routine down by that point, right?

COOPER:The routine we had down, but how

do you film that dynamically and personally?

How many times have we watched Dancing

with the Stars and all these shows? You seehow people shoot dancing, but [here] you

have to watch these two all in love.

Well, it seemed to me like you took a per-

son out and put the camera in. COOPER:

Yes, thats what we did. Thats exactly

what we did.

You danced with us and then she was dancing

with us.COOPER: 100 percent correct.

RUSSELL: The dancing was the whole thing

to attack unto itsel. We had to find the right

choreographer

COOPER: Who was amazing, Mandy

Moore.

RUSSELL: Mandy Moore, right. Not the ac-

tress. She has done amateur Dancing with

the Stars contests in Colorado, so shes no

stranger to local dance contests, which is

what I wanted it to eel like. I wanted it to

eel like there were some ringers.

Right.RUSSELL: Who were like, Oh, these

are scary people, theyre rom Belarus. A lot

o them were rom Belarus, or some reason.

Theyre like proessional dancers, theyre like

assassins. I wanted our people to be kind

o like i you and me did it, you know? Thedancing in Pulp Fiction meant something to

me because its about this its about their

hearts and their eyes. And that, to me, was

the most important thing. [Bradley and Jen-

nier] danced to the camera or one section

o it, but the rest o it, I wanted to do in real

time, which Im proud we did. Its just about

being with them in a two shot.

And because the choreography in the studio is

also beautiul, did you choreograph the cam-

era movements? Or, do you have so much aith

in your operator as to the camera that you can

say, Okay, do it diferently, and something

else will come?COOPER:Oh no, its like, [Da-

vids] moving with the Steadicam.

Youre walking around with it?COOPER: Oh

yeah. Its very much the same way he is with

the actors. People are ducking, booms are fly-

ing. I mean, he is steering every aspect o the

ship. So, as youre editing the movie, youre

constantly trying to figure out how much itsgoing to cost to take him out o the rame.

David, the films background is particularly

alive, like your actors. Oten when you see

films, thats not the case. Is it just contagious

because the background extras are watching

you work? Or do you speak directly to them?

How do they come to lie?RUSSELL: Theres

some union thing you have to go through be-

cause otherwise it becomes an upgrade. This

was shot or the same budget as The Fighter,

which is not a lot o money, so you have to

[be careul about] suddenly [upgrading anextra, which happens] i you give them spe-

cific direction. But Shelley [Ziegler] is rom

Baltimore. She did The Sopranos a lot, she did

Boardwalk Empire a lot. She did The Fighter.

Shes antastic, and she knows what we want,

which is to make this eel warm and alive.

She gives people specific instructions so they

are doing specific things. That persons going

to the chocolate ountain. These people are

having an argument. These people are happy

to be there and are taking pictures. These

people are flirting with each other. This guy

wants to see that girl over there.

Alright, lets talk about Jennier Lawrence

because she is just amazing. From the mo-

ment she enters, youre already in love. Shes

got such an energy, a bolt o energy in her,

such a bullshit meter that is on. And then, the

layers in which she becomes like him out

o control but not, apparently, right rom

the start. COOPER: Her acility or emo-

tional depth at the drop o a hat is kind o

[amazing]. Ive done two movies with her

now, and the second movie [Susanne Biers

upcoming Serena] we did was equally aschallenging dramatically. I mean, she had

to go to some sick places. I remember [dur-

ing one scene] Im watching her and [as an

actor] Im eeling everything that shes do-

ing. I eel horrible and embarrassed and that

Ive hurt her [character] because o what

shes doing. [But] also at the same time as

a lover o this movie, [it was] so exhilarat-

ing. [Laughs] It was like, Yes, motheruck-

ers! David was like, Thats what Im talk-

ing about. [Laughs] I remember I wanted

to scream. She was so in the pocket. Shes

suchI mean, she embodies so many difer-

ent aspects o what youd think a woman is

as a male, as a emale, as a human being.

I mean, shes so sexy and then not. Shes

quite a stunning human being.

RUSSELL: You know, Jennier was some-

body who we all thought, Well, shes a

little too young. I didnt know much about

her she was great in Winters Bone butI thought, Well, why dont we read her? So

she Skyped her audition rom her parents

home in Louisville, Kentucky. We already

had two or three big contenders, big stars,

because this is a very dimensional role. Then

she just came in, and I was very struck by

her personality, her energy. She dressed up

or the character in her athers den, with the

eye makeup and the hair and everything. She

really wanted it. She was willing to try to do

anything that we were working on. She just

brought a very special human-being qual-ity. I said to Harvey, I think [we should cast

her], and he goes, I think shes too young,

man. I said, I dont know. She seems kind

o ageless in some ways to me.

Lets talk about the chemistry between the

two o you when you were dancing. I mean,

that reveals so much about what was going

on when youre practicing and the first time

youre dancing your ace comes this close to

her. RUSSELL: You know what I love about

that as she gets pulled in and then she

spins out, you think thats the end o the

shot. But then she goes around.

COOPER: And the way she looks at him

when she spins out. Also my avorite thing

o hers, when theyre dancing, theres this

one [shot where] youre over [Pat] and

her hair is alling and shes kind o smiling.

[Laughs] Youre just like, What the uck is

going on? I mean, really. Were just sitting

there and were like, What? Like, holy shit.

Theres like our or five moments in that

movie where shes just, you know, stopping

the film. Its just like, Holy uck!

Yeah, its got star dust in it.

LOVE ON THE OUTSIDEfrom page 49

make go through AFFRM? No, because AF-

FRM probably cant handle the next ilms as

Im trying to increase my budgets. AFFRM

has a very speciic P&A budget which has

to be put against a speciic size o ilm. But

as long as Im making a ilm in that size that

its into the model, it will go through AFFRM.

Thank God Participant comes in and kind o

supersizes what AFFRM could do or Middle,


8/8


to help us reach a wider share of the market.

Thats been amazing. But Ive been able to

retain all rights outside of theatrical because

Participant, theyre not licensing anything.

Its a P&A partnership. I walked away from

Sundance with all the rest of the rights, [in-

cluding] international. And for the last seven

months, Ive been trying to exploit them.

And every single top international salesagent has passed, every single second-tier

sales agent, and every single C-level sales

agent who takes the blood-and-gore and

one-step-above-porn films has passed.

Wow. If I did not have my hands full trying to

figure out the domestic distribution future, I

would completely turn my attention to that.

The people who crack that are the winners,

right? Because there are films like yours that

have unattended international rights just sit-

ting there. Youre talking about hundreds of

films, current, past, classic, that have unat-tended international rights. And so, if there

was any kind of mechanism put together for

that, the world is that persons oyster. They

could have whatever they want. We would be

throwing films at them. Is it going to be hard?

Yeah. But is it impossible? There is no mar-

ket you cant tell me that. And for me, it

has nothing to do with hip-hop or sports or

anything that flourishes with black people

abroad. It has to be with knowing people who

love film. I was the first in line to see A Sepa-

ration, and they did not market to me. Im not

from that world, but thats a good movie. At

the very core of it, if these films are offered in

places where people love movies, if they are

presented as fine films, beautiful films, world-

class films, how are they not going to play?

Fox Searchlight can take Beasts of the Southern

Wild all over the world now, yes, they are

Fox Searchlight, but the bottom line is that its

playing [internationally]. However much the

industry positions that film so its a quote-un-

quote independent film, divorcing it from its

blackness, that is a black film with black faces

and its playing overseas. So yeah, its a mad-dening situation and it needs to be fixed.

I heard in an interview you did at Urban World

you said something to the effect of, A fi lm-

makers responsibility doesnt end with pic-

ture lock. Talk a little bit to filmmakers who

look to you as an example of that philosophy

and what it means in 2012. I dont know if its

about looking to me as an example as much

as having common sense. I mean, my God,

youve fought for this film! And you hand it

over to somebody and [say], Okay, well, let

me know how it goes. As a marketer and

publicist, Ive seen this. Ive represented

filmmakers and films for a dozen years, and

I would be astounded at the drive and pas-

sion and all-consuming handle on the film

that the director had during the filmmaking

process. And then, Id see them in the mar-

keting meeting and hide a little in the corner,

not knowing what to ask and what to do. Its

like, Dude, get a grip. Learn this shit. Youneed to know this. It is not over. You are still

battling for this. Do not trust. Now, film-

makers of note, they have a different situ-

ation. Theyre probably going to be with a

marketing department of a studio thats go-

ing to handle that. They dont have much to

worry about. But thats not us, you know?

Right. The bottom line is we need to edu-

cate ourselves to the marketing and distribu-

tion patterns of our films. Making sure a film

reaches an audience is part of the filmmaking

process. As a filmmaker, its part of my respon-sibility. Everyones different. I understand. You

get to the end of it and its like, Im done, I

cant do any more. But ultimately, I say youre

not at the end unless your film has reached

its audience. And that doesnt always mean

theatrical. For some people, your audience

is reached in different ways. You gotta have

some idea about how that works and what

your true prospects are. I was talking earlier on

in Toronto with a filmmaker who has a script.

I said, Yeah, brother, make that. Whats your

budget? And he was like, $2.8. I said, Okay,

how are you going to make your money back?

What do you mean? [Laughs] Is that your

$2.8? Because if it aint your $2.8, youre going

to have to figure out how to make the money

back, my brother. Do you understand that

there is no current model for you to get to $2.8

with the film you just described to me? If you

are making a film beyond your means, youre

not being a responsible filmmaker. Serious. It

needs to be part of our DNA as filmmakers to

know what the world is like outside of our set,

to understand what the business of filmmak-

ing is. And so, yeah, thats my big fist in the air.And so,Middle of Nowhere, theatrical release?

Yeah. We shot this film last year in June for

19 days. The Sundance thing was a beautiful

long shot. The award, as you guys have expe-

rienced as well, adds a new level of attention

to the film. Were an L.A. film, Im an L.A. film-

maker and this is an L.A. story in a lot of ways,

so we played the L.A. Film Festival in June and

it was a beautiful blowout, a 1,000-foot gala

red carpet that kicked off our campaign for

the summer. That has included street teams

at every black summer event you can think

of, collaborating with all of the organizations

that are [in] AFFRM, over 16 organizations

in top markets around the country that have

been having weekly planning meanings about

grassroots tactics and marketing. There are

amazing things happening in each city that

are being handcrafted, customized and ex-

ecuted by leaders in their markets. You say

grassroots and think, oh, Im passing outpostcards. But how about the AFFRM leaders

who are putting together an art exhibit of work

based on the film? One of our leaders in Se-

attle petitioned the city to have city vans pick

up seniors who wouldnt otherwise have a ride

and bring them to the Friday matinee. Those

are the kind of tactics we are employing. We

dont have TV commercials, just people hold-

ing hands, rallying around the concept of a

certain kind of black cinematic image. Thats

whats been happening all summer. And last

night at Toronto we had an international pre-miere, a sold-out house.

Congratulations. Were 30 days out from

opening right now, and all were trying to do

is prove a point that these films have viability

and that there is an audience for them. And to

think beyond that opening weekend because

I dont want to get opening weekend-itis, you

know? Ive made a film that I want to live a

full, robust life way beyond October 12th.

PHYSICAL THERAPYfrom page 55

was after my law school buddy, Julius, and

I had left, he asked me what I proposed to

do. I said I wanted to make a film and I told

him that I thought this was one of those rare

films, where it was essentially two people in

a room, but with intense dramatic content;

that I could make something very powerful

very cheaply, and that in itself was a gift. It

was a doable film. And without my solicit-

ing it, he stepped up and said, Ill help you

financially. Ill put up 20 percent of the bud-

get. Now, for someone to do that unsolic-

ited was some hint to me of public accep-tance. This was a guy who normally went to

see mainstream films and he saw a fascinat-

ing story in this subject and was prepared to

gamble his money on it. And that was highly

motivating. It was not just a matter of saying,

Im going to do it on a microbudget, but of

realizing that I could do it on a microbudget

and still do the story justice. I stopped ask-

ing permission to make the film. I mean,

normally what you do is probably what you

did after Breathing Lessons. You shop the idea

around. You rub shoulders with Hollywood

1204 flm prod feature profile middle of nowhere

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