As an African American woman and one who comes from a family of immigrants, I often didn’t see enough people who represented me in film. The depiction of African Americans in film were either slaves or poverty-stricken. I saw a plethora of ‘token’ characters and punch lines of various jokes but never just people. The women I saw were either damsels in distress or the subjects of men’s manic pixie dreams. They were neither strong nor independent, the person I was taught to become. As a result, for the majority of my life, because I was underrepresented on screen, I thought I had no place in cinema, that I was unwelcome.
As a filmmaker, as a first-generation American, and as a person, I want to express what I wish I had seen, what I needed,
As a filmmaker, as a first-generation American, and as a person, I want to express what I wish I had seen, what I needed,