Alice Walker Taking a Bow

It hasn’t quite sunk in as yet. Two weeks ago we had the world premier of Beauty In Truth in London. The event turned into so much more than a screening. The hunger to see Alice and our film was evident in two sold out screenings. 1,800 people roared, clapped and laughed as they watched the film and later heard Alice speak during the Q&A.

We have been overwhelmed with incredible heartfelt responses from audience members who attended the event. We are posting many of these comments on twitter as well as our Facebook page, Alice Walker Film  As a result of the wide scale publicity we received, I was asked to write a blog for the U.K’s leading television newspaper, Broadcast. Here it is.

Alice Comes To London Town

This was no ordinary film premier. How could it be when the icon that is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Color Purple Alice Walker, comes to town for the world premier of a feature documentary on her life and art.

Alice Walker: Beauty In Truth had its world premier at Queen Elizabeth Hall on March 10th as part of a 3 day Women of the World (WOW) festival at the Southbank. The vision of Jude Kelly OBE, the festival brings together women from all over the world for a vibrant gathering, celebrating International Women’s Day.

Producer Shaheen Haq and I couldn’t think of a better way to unveil our film. We wanted our first audience to be diverse and reflective of Alice Walker’s universal appeal. We couldn’t have imagined in our wildest dreams what would unfold as soon as soon as the announcement was made.

Within three days, and with no advance publicity the screening sold out– just word of mouth and our own social media networks. Distressed people rang the Southbank for tickets, our company Kali Films was inundated with pleas and requests for comps. We suggested to WOW, why not do a second screening. They went for it and that screening too sold out. Talk about a hot ticket. The hunger to see Alice Walker was palpable and we understood perfectly why this would be so.

Writing From the Earth

Alice Walker’s extraordinary story is one of triumph against all odds. Born in a paper-thin shack on a plantation in Georgia in the Deep South, she was the eighth child of a sharecropper family. As her older brother recalls in the film, “baby Alice used a twig to write in the dirt” while her mother picked cotton.

Alice Walker talks about being forced to sit at the back of a bus as she left home for college. She vowed then and there that she would do everything within her power to change the system of racist apartheid.

Her adult life unfolds during some of the most turbulent years of cultural and political shifts in North America. Hearing Martin Luther King speak while a student, Alice Walker’s intimate involvement in the civil rights movement was inevitable.  Always breaking taboos, Walker fell in love and married a white civil rights lawyer. They lived in Mississippi where interracial marriage was illegal. “I did it because it was illegal. How dare they tell me I can’t marry someone I want to marry.”

Beauty In Truth is first time Alice Walker has given unprecedented access to herself as well as her personal archive of photographs and journals, making it possible to create an unparalleled portrait of her indelible mark on contemporary culture.

Pratibha Parmar & Alice Walker- March 10, 2013

Filmmaker’s Heaven

I could not have been more delighted with the audience response to the film at the film’s world premier. 1,800 people roared, clapped and screamed as Walker and I stepped out and onto the stage. As someone said, “It was like being at a rock concert”.  After the agony of raising funding from 16 different funders over the last 4 years and crowd sourcing to raise the final $55k, I am allowing myself to glide into a filmmaker’s heaven.

Pratibha Parmar
Writer | Director | Producer

Alice, Samora Biko, Pratibha & Nkosinathi Biko in Cape Town

You may have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet on the blog front recently. As you’ve probably guessed, running the crowd-funding campaign was an all-encompassing experience – for 90 exhilarating, exhausting, inspiring days, IndieGoGo took over my life. Thanks to the generosity of over 300 donors from around the world, we managed to exceed our target, and raised $55,100.

As the Occupy Movement spread to almost 1000 cities, and I accompanied Alice to the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in Cape town, I reflected on the role of the arts in social justice movements past, present and future. I started a newsletter to share these thoughts and keep supporters of the film informed of the latest developments in the campaign. Here are a few of the newsletters if you’d like to catch up on what I’ve been up to.

Read about Zainab Salbi, Alice’s activism and reaching the 1 month mark here.

Sharing my thoughts on Occupy, crowd-fun
ding and battling my demons.

Some responses to The Russell Tribunal, including a quote from Howard Zinn.

One of my favourite newsletters, including Steve Biko, June Jordan and Gloria Steinem!

Womanism, Code Pink, Thanksgiving and Spirituality – read more here.

Ballads of Art – some ideas about telling stories, supporting women artists and rewarding our funders.

Photo of (left to right) Pratibha Parmar, Alice Walker and Shaheen Haq, by Trish Govoni

We’re now over a month into our crowd-funding campaign – aiming to raise $50,000 in 90 days on IndieGoGo - and it has been an emotional rollercoaster.  We have raised over $15,000 so far. Every donation truly makes my heart sing, and every encouraging comment spurs us on towards the finish line. Do check out the IndieGoGo page to see what our wonderful donors from around the world have been saying. We have recently been filming a few of our remaining interviews, before (funds permitting!) getting back into the edit suite to turn all of this incredible footage into a feature-length film.

The count down continues! 50 days to go and we have $34,554 left to raise. We know we can do it with YOUR help. The last few weeks have seen fantastic write-ups about the film. I am moved by people’s passion, giving us the vital energy to keep going. I want to share an impassioned call out from one of our donors, Patricia Lesesne on her Facebook wall.

“Every now and then, there is a cause—a project, an initiative, a mission— that encompasses the very core of who you are, what you do, and why you are here. When one encounters this THING that is bigger than you—this thing that IS you, ALL of you – she wants to share it with everyone she knows. And she wants everyone to consider it, just take a moment to seriously consider it. This film about Alice Walker is one of THOSE THINGS for me. Whether you are one of my students or parents of my students, a fellow alum of my beloved alma maters—The Principia Upper School, Harvard University, Tufts University, a childhood friend, a more recent friend and/or colleague, sorority sister, a member of a congregation that I have been blessed to serve, whatever your race, gender, sexual identity,religion, political standing, martial status, or economic background—whoever you are and however we are connected, I am pointing you to this independent film and asking you to take a moment to consider supporting it, watching it, and sharing it. In a real sense, I am saying, “Hey look at this,” and in so doing I am saying, “Hey, look at me…a me that you may not know or have considered.” Consider the expression of Divinity that choose Blackness and female-ness as a conduit. If you look closely enough, you’ll see yourself too, as we are all one. Thank you! Thank you for alerting us to this awesome opportunity Sis. Aishah Shahidah Simmons!”

Aishah Shahidah Simmons, none other than our very own fundraising team member, blogged for Ms Magazine about Alice Walker’s pivotal role in developing her consciousness and informing her work. Aishah’s writing is impassioned and beautiful and I hope you will take a few moments to read her blog post.

Inbetween crowd-funding and filming, I managed to fit in an interview with G3 Magazine’s film editor Jen Kilchenmann for So So Gay.

I’ve also been emailing out a regular newsletter with updates about the film. You can read the latest one here and follow the link at the top to sign up. Don’t worry, I won’t fill up your inbox – I usually just send out an email once a week and you can unsubscribe anytime. Finally, I urge each one of you reading this to support our fund raising drive for the next 50 days. Pledge to become Beauty In Truth Ambassador by actively soliciting donations from your friends & networks.

Abundance

Witches fly on brooms across wide open skies.

Women filmmakers fly over fences – wooden ones, concrete ones, barbed wire ones, and monolithic, unshakeable ones. We sometimes knock ourselves out trying to break down these fences, but then we pick ourselves up and like the wise witches we ride up and above, buoyed by our renewed optimism and faith in our visions.

So what re-energizes me? What makes me pick up again? Sometimes it only takes a timely inspiring quote or chancing on an interview with an amazing woman making her mark in the world despite the odds. One of these recent inspirational blasts was a video interview with filmmaker Euzhan Palcy. Everyone should take to heart her grandmothers’ words of wisdom. ‘Fly over fences’ she said and don’t let anyone or anything get in the way of realising your dreams.

Euzhan Palcy directed one of my favourite films, Black Shack Alley (1983), a poignant story about the love and sacrifice of a poor black family living on a Martinique sugar cane plantation in the 1930s, told through the eyes of a young black boy.

The Gift of Giving

Crowd funding is an exciting and potentially empowering way to raise money through micro giving. It’s also a way to build grassroots community support and have dialogue and discussions. This is what we are finding as we move into the 3rd week of our campaign to raise money towards the completion of our film.

We have 74 days left out of our 90 day campaign. So far we have raised $7,725. Our trailer has been seen by over 2000 people. If only 50% of those who had watched the trailer had donated $10 each, we would have had $10,000 towards our goal of $50,000. If 50% had donated $25 each, we’d be $25,000 closer to achieving our gaol. If 50% had donated $50 each, we would smash our target. This is the magic of micro giving. So folks if you are one of those who has seen the trailer and loved it or one of those about to see it and be blown away by it, stop and think how your small donation can add up to a much bigger number.

I continue to have faith that there is a diverse and widespread community of people who want to see this film in the world as much we do. Films like this do and can make a difference. We know this to be true. You know this to be true.

We need you! We can’t do this alone. It will take a global village to make this film, regardless that it is about the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Please visit our page and watch the trailer which has been described as “stunning” “breathtaking” and “beautiful” and not by us! (http://www.indiegogo.com/Alice-Walker-Beauty-In-Truth-2) Be enticed by all the perks and rewards we are offering for your generous donations.

Help us spread the word and share our campaign with your friends, family, and networks. Join us in this exciting adventure. Make It Happen For All Of Us.

Alice Walker

In the few weeks since returning to London from filming in the US, we’ve really hit the ground running. The long hours and excitement of shooting have been replaced by a new challenge: crowdfunding. After over two decades of working in film, I’m no stranger to the challenge of raising money to finance projects, particularly when films about women – especially women of color – rarely attract mainstream funding. To finance Alice Walker: Beauty In Truth, we’ve applied for various grants and even resorted to extensions on our personal credit cards! To help us on our way to completion, we’ve decided to take the plunge and start a fundraising campaign on IndieGoGo. Our aim is to make $50,000 in 90 days. It’s a big task, but we’re sure we can do it with your help.

To give you a taste of what’s to come in the feature film, we’ve put together a trailer. It’s incredibly exciting to put a small slice of Beauty In Truth out into the world, and I’d love to know what you think of it. Feel free to leave a comment or share your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter.

With 90% of filming complete and the IndieGoGo campaign on its way, we’re starting to do a bit more press about the film. Marian Evans interviewed me for global feminist website, Gender Across Borders and blogged about Beauty In Truth on HerBlueprint for The International Museum of Women. I wrote a blog post on Risk Takers & History Makers for Epochalips, a site for lesbians and their allies and indieWIRE blogged about our crowdfunding campaign.

Please check out the trailer and the IndieGoGo page; donate if you can; and share the link with your friends and networks. We’re so close to the finish line and I know we can make it with your help!

]]> http://www.alicewalkerfilm.com/2011/10/02/from-filming-to-funding/feed/ 0 http://www.alicewalkerfilm.com/2011/09/01/a-rare-jewelle/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-rare-jewelle http://www.alicewalkerfilm.com/2011/09/01/a-rare-jewelle/#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:26:05 +0000 Pratibha Parmar http://www.alicewalkerfilm.com/?p=688

Making this film has been an extraordinary journey so far. Giving me opportunities to meet some amazing and inspiring women, all of who deserve films in their own right. Jewelle Gomez  is one such woman. I have known Jewelle for many years but rarely have had an opportunity to talk to her in depth. I recently caught up with her at her home in San Francisco.

First and Foremost. Jewelle has one of the sexiest voices I have ever encountered. When she speaks she does so with incredible poetical precision and erudite coherence. All I can do is stare and listen in awe. I was keen to interview Jewelle as I have always admired and respected her consistent support for women of color artists as well as a commitment to her own unique artistic vision. Jewelle’s pioneering book The Gilda Stories (1991) broke less trodden ground when for the first time a woman of color ventured into a fictional foray about vampires. Taking a lesbian feminist perspective, the book is an adventure about an escaped slave who comes of age over two hundred years. Jewelle rightly won a double Lambda Literary Award   for this pioneering novel.

The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

The publication of Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple in 1982 was an important cultural, literary moment. It inspired confidence and hope amongst many women and especially lesbians of color. The singular potency of the tender love between Celie and Shug, the two female lead characters in the novel, made visible Black lesbian relationships in the most beautiful of ways. A rare Sapphic tribute.

Did Jewelle remember how she felt when she first read The Color Purple? What was it about the book that struck her most? “The Color Purple for me took both the spiritual core of black womanhood and the agonizing reality of black womanhood and brought them together in a place that would allow for hopefulness that I hadn’t ever really seen before, certainly not on the page.”

Countless vitriolic attacks on Alice Walker personally as well as the book, escalated ten fold when the subsequent movie of The Color Purple by Steven Spielberg was released. Tony Brown, television host of the program Tony Brown’s Journal on PBS called the film “the most racist depiction of Black men since Birth of A Nation and the most anti-Black family film of the modern film era.” As most of you know ‘Birth Of A Nation’, (1915,) is widely seen as ‘both one of the landmarks in the history of American cinema and a landmark in American racism.’

Prime Time Television shows were devoted to discussing the merits or otherwise of Alice Walker’s book and Steven Spielberg’s movie. Both works of art were seen as a threat to black masculinity because of the perceived ‘stereotyped, clichéd’ images and the stark exposure of incest and domestic violence within Black families. Ishmael Reed, a Black novelist labeled the book and film “a Nazi conspiracy” and ‘accused’ Alice Walker of having a feminist and lesbian agenda. And that this alone should be reason enough to dismiss this Pulitzer Prize winning book.

Jewelle continues, “It’s always interesting to me, any time there’s a discussion on the topic of independent women, lesbianism is an undercurrent in the critique of the work.  And one of the brilliant things in The Color Purple is that it’s right out there.  She (Alice Walker) has Shug Avery, clearly a bisexual character, whose love for Celie is able to help Celie save herself from her circumstances, and until then there wasn’t really a major novel, which included the romantic and sexual love between two women as part of the natural order of things.  That was a huge thing, and I know that some people had issues with it, but some people always will.”

Many Black male critics gave vent to their hostile views wherever they could find a platform. Black women on the whole loved the film and felt that the book told “their story’ and the movie ‘lifted a burden.’ Alice Walker received personal letters from women and men all over the world that testified to the book’s gift of reaching deep into the hearts of so many people open enough to receive it.

The Color Purple was published in the context of the late 1970’s and early 80’s burgeoning movement of women of color poets, activists and writers. Jewelle was living in New York during this exhilarating time, and as we spoke I sensed her excitement at being part of this pivotal moment in queer women of color activism and creativity.

“Our work as African American women really, really, blossomed. There was a magazine at the time in New York called Jemima.  It was part of a collective and they did readings all around the city. It was an African American lesbian group, and they published magazines.  It was just very rich and it felt very much like what I imagined being part of the Black Arts Movement in the 60s would have been like – this sense of being really connected to progressive political politics and expression that was going to make life different, that was going to make the world change.”

It takes determination, imagination and passion to retain artistic integrity. Jewelle Gomez has done that ten fold, and as such, she continues to make a difference for all of us – through her daring and her art. She remains allied to progressive politics and makes the necessary connections between art and change, art and social justice. I am thrilled that Jewelle is part of our film, Beauty In Truth, because she is one rare gem in the treasure trove of women of color writers.

It took two years to chase down Mr. Danny Glover  for an interview, so finally when the call came; we had 24 hours to organize the crew and equipment. It would have been impossible if we were not already in the Bay Area but as luck would have it here we were/are on the right side of the gaping big Atlantic pond.

Our time with Danny Glover was far more than we could have hoped for. He was erudite, charming and full of stories about his childhood as well as his key role in a student led strike to establish a Department of Black Studies at San Francisco State University back in the 1960s. The strike was the longest one in US history and led to the establishment of the first School of Ethnic Studies in the U.S. He even told us a fascinating story of how he came to be cast in Lethal Weapon with Mel Gibson.

In the movie, The Color Purple directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Alice Walker, Danny Glover played the character of Mr. with incredible depth and artistic nuance. He brought an unforgettable breadth of performance to his character who went through an epic arc – from being brutalized as a young boy by his own father, to becoming a brutalizer to a painful, final moment of redemption.

My Grandmother Was A Feminist

“Whenever you attempt try to tell the story of African-Americans and the diversity of that story, the texture of that story and the historical context of that story, within a film, it’s challenging, yet it is the seminal story in this country’s history.” Danny Glover

Mr. Glover shares with us his grandmother’s reaction when she finally saw the movie on a DVD. She said ‘I’m gonna get a switch after that boy. He knows he was raised better than to act like that.’ His performance was so utterly convincing he had a challenge persuading her that that was ‘not him’ but a character in a movie. So every time he went to visit her after that he went with a switch and she would hit him playfully with that switch. “My grandmother was a feminist so she was not shy about taking that switch to me.  She’d say, don’t you run, I’m gonna get you. She got a kick out that. There was something beautiful about it.”

Shaheen Haq, the producer gets Mr Glover to sign on the dotted line

Liberation Movie

“The Color Purple is about liberation, about Celie’s liberation but also Mr’s liberation.” Danny Glover

More than anything else in the movie, Danny Glover’s character of Mr. was the lightening rod for the somewhat ‘toxic” response to the film. Here we had a movie, which for the first time was delving into the difficult, sensitive issues of child abuse, domestic violence and black men’s brutal treatment of black women. Here we also had for the first time a film with an all black cast , actors each and every one of them of stellar abilities who finally had a Hollywood film in which their talent could shine. From my reading and research into the journey of the book to the screen, I have come across nothing but an overwhelming sense of love for the book and the film from all those involved in bringing it to the screen, both behind and in front of the camera.

I particularly enjoyed the conversation when Danny Glover talked about being directed by Steven Spielberg – how he called the ensemble of actors for rehearsals but he, Spielberg, only turned up once in the two week rehearsal period – leaving the actors to hang out and bond as a unit. This became the foundation for the work the actors did on set with each other and their director.  “He allowed the ensemble to emerge from our contact with each other and settle in with each other. That was pretty ingenious.” As a voracious consumer of anecdotes about how different directors work with actors and the various strategies actors’ use to ‘stay in the moment’, Danny’s tales from the set of The Color Purple had an enthusiastic audience in me.

Pratibha Parmar with Danny Glover. Photo by Shaheen Haq

Vantage Point of Love

The more he spoke the more evident it became how much Danny Glover has been influenced by the many women in his life including his mother who died tragically in a car accident on the very day Danny received a phone call saying he had been cast in Places of The Heart with Sally Field. He dedicated his work in that film to his mother and in a scene in the film where Sally Fields character is crying, the handkerchief he hands to her, belonged to his own mother. A beautiful gesture born of out of a deep grief and mourning, ensured that his mother’s spirit was with him while he worked.

How did he first come across Alice Walker’s writings, I asked him.  “My former wife, Asaki was responsible for me reading Black women writers and that’s how I came to read everything by Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and many other women writers. A characteristic of black women’s writings was that they could be more truthful about me, that is black men, than we could and I found that to be fascinating. Their writings have allowed me to see myself. There is honesty and there is love, they write from the vantage point of loving us”

It’s easy to see why once you have encountered the charming Mr. Glover.

Love Supreme - Danny Glover & Harry Belafonte

]]> http://www.alicewalkerfilm.com/2011/08/05/the-color-purples-lethal-weapon/feed/ 0 http://www.alicewalkerfilm.com/2011/07/08/the-color-purple-the-color-of-love/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-color-purple-the-color-of-love http://www.alicewalkerfilm.com/2011/07/08/the-color-purple-the-color-of-love/#comments Fri, 08 Jul 2011 11:32:37 +0000 Pratibha Parmar http://www.alicewalkerfilm.com/?p=582

Steven Spielberg & Pratibha Parmar – June 6th 2011(Photo by Shaheen Haq)

Alice Walker’s story would of course not be complete without exploring a significant chapter in her life, namely The Color Purple Movie by Steven Spielberg.

From what Alice Walker has written in her book The Same River Twice, and what have I read and seen, there is no doubt that all of the people who came together to make the film did so from a place of love for the book and a genuine desire to tell this unique story as best as they could. There is so much that can be said and has been said about The Color Purple. There are books, critical essays and newsprint stories and articles that discuss multiple aspects of issues raised by the book and the film. Some of this will be explored in the film.

Oprah Winfrey has said that ‘god had entered my life’ the day she heard that she had been cast.  For Whoppi Goldberg the ‘film represented a big change in her life”. I wanted to know what the film represented for Mr Spielberg? So here is my diary jottings from the day we interviewed Mr Spielberg.

Apologies for not posting earlier but as soon as we returned to London from our month of filming in Mexico and the US, we hit the proverbial ground running. We still haven’t stopped. And I still haven’t quite the hang of regular blogging.

June 6^th | 9.00 A.M.

Last day in Los Angeles

We arrive at Universal City and are directed to the Dreamworks offices where guards at the gates are expecting us. “You here for the interview?” We answer in the affirmative, show our ID’s and are waved through.

“The Interview” is with none other than Steven Spielberg who has graciously given us a time slot in his extremely busy schedule. We set up and pre-light in the Dreamworks Gamesroom when the phone rings. Mr Spielberg is on his way down.

Black baseball cap, black leather bomber jacket, and unlaced shoes he is unmistakably Steven Spielberg.  His colleague, Marvin who is with him and tells us that Steven only has limited time as he is in post production on 2 feature films including Tin Tin, in pre-production on Lincoln and producing several television series. One of these television series stars Shelley Conn, who played the lead in my feature film, Nina’s Heavenly Delights. More on that later.

I am keen to get going and make the most of my short time with him so the introductions are brief.  But a member of my crew engages him in conversation about the time they were on set of The Color Purple movie as part of a documentary crew. What! I don’t believe it. This is eating into MY time so I am forced to raise my voice to get started. This short window when final adjustments are being made is crucial for me as this is when I establish a rapport with my interviewee. I am perturbed and annoyed to have this precious time eaten into. And it does nothing to help me relax. Yes I am nervous because there are lots of questions I want to ask and it’s taken a lot of emails to get here today.

Before we roll, Mr Spielberg asks to check the frame but only after Gale Tattersall, our DP has made some quick adjustments to the lighting. The baseball cap is throwing shadows. Lighting adjusted and approval granted we move on to the first question.

Uncensored Heart

By the 3^rd question, Mr Spielberg visibly relaxes. Once we have established an easy flow, an interesting, revealing interview unfolds. Most of it focuses on the making of The Color Purple movie, the 11 Oscar nominations the film received, the fall out and controversy that ensued on its release. Suffice to say, I didn’t get to ask all the questions I had wanted but the questions I did ask were answered with openness, humor and thoughtful, perceptive reflections.

A beautiful phrase that he used to talk about Alice Walker stuck with me- “Alice has an uncensored heart”. The film coalesced two life opportunities for Steven (if I may) – making his first film as an adult and becoming a father during the production. Spookily, it was when they were shooting the scene of Celie (played by Whoopi Goldberg) giving birth that someone ran onto the set and told Steven that his wife Kate Capshaw was giving birth to their first child, Max.

The interview would have gone on longer but Steven was needed upstairs so our time was up. After the interview, we chatted briefly. Steven told me how much he loves India and has been there at least 6 times. The first time he went, was when they did some 2^nd Unit shooting in India for Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Subsequently he went back and travelled all over India by train. Ah we have something in common as I did that too as a student.

I gave him a DVD of my feature film Nina’s Heavenly Delights and told him how I had cast Shelley Conn who had never played a lead in a feature before. Now she was one of the leads in his T.V. series Terra Nova.  He thanked me! How gracious.  It was a pity he was whisked away otherwise I am sure we could have spent longer talking about India and The Color Purple movie. I might have even pitched him my next narrative film and come away with a commission. Maybe!

When Shaheen asked him if she could take a photograph of us, he held up the DVD of Nina’s Heavenly Delights I had given him. I hope he watches it in his downtime if he has any. I am expecting a call Mr Spielberg.

Chatting with Steven Spielberg (Photo by Shaheen Haq)

Photo Credit (c) Shaheen Haq

Finished. A month long epic journey of filming in Mexico, Los Angeles and New York. I had started with high ambitions to blog regularly during our trip but it was clearly unrealistic once we hit a couple of roadblocks. Namely an urgent need to find a replacement DOP for our LA and NYC shoots. Yikes.

This challenge turned out to give us two blessings in disguise. Namely, DOP Gale Tattersall who joined our team in LA and Simon Dennis, my regular DOP, who flew out to NYC from the UK, literally a day after finishing a 7 week shoot on a feature. I had started this film with Simon in Atlanta 2009 to film the opening of the Alice Walker Archive at Emory University so it was fitting he was here for this penultimate shoot. I first had the pleasure working with Si on my debut narrative feature, Nina’s Heavenly Delights, back in 2006 where we bonded in a way one does when dealing with some pretty dire circumstances. Enuf said!

So, the goddess of celluloid smiled and gave us two magnificent painters of light in our hour of need.

Charming Crew

(From left to right-Simon, Ryan, Shaheen, Matthew, Judy, LaChanze and Pratibha)

I wanted to bring my NYC crew home with me. What a fine crew. We had a lot of laughs. Ryan, our driver/assistant who negotiated our 15seater van filled with crew and equipment around NYC and New Jersey, was a fabulously, engaged presence. Ryan, a drummer with an all girl band called Megabush, had the habit of listening and rehearsing to Nirvana percussion beats on a guide track – which admittedly did cause a few moments of panic on the freeway. We found Matthew Henderson, an incredibly able and fast Camera Assistant after umpteen emails and phone calls. He came on board and kindly dropped his normal rate for us because “he valued the content of the project”. Bless him. He has a loyal director in me as of now. And he diligently kept the best ‘Driver’s Log’, a DIT has ever provided. I was amazed at how Judy Karp, our sound recordist came on the subway from Brooklyn into Manhattan every morning with her sound gear in a couple of bags. She looked like she was going away for the weekend. Judy works regularly with one of US’s uber indie directors’ John Sayles and had been with him on his latest film, Amigo set in the Philippines under US occupation. It was one of those times when the ‘chemistry was just right’ for all of us.

We filmed some extremely interesting interviews with individuals who have both shaped history and as well as lived through its tumultuous political and cultural moments. Its’ tough to control myself and not start writing about each one of these people but we want to leave a few surprises for when the film comes out.

An Angel Sang To Me

Photo Credit (c) Shaheen Haq

However, I can’t resist mentioning one person- LaChanze who was our very last interview in New York. Wow, we went out on a sizzling bang, especially when she sang the opening lines of the song, The Color Purple from the Broadway musical. All I could do was not cry there and then. What a stunning woman and a beautiful voice. LaChanze and her two beautiful daughters made us all feel very welcome in their gorgeous home. The crew couldn’t get enough of her.

I remember the momentous occasion of the opening night of the musical on Broadway when she first came on stage. It was electric. Her embodiment of Celie’s journey from a sexually abused domestic slave to a self determining, self loving, fully realized woman is one of the most moving and heartfelt arc’s I have ever witnessed on screen or on stage. LaChanze deservedly won the Tony Award for her leading role as Celie, Alice Walker’s unforgettable heroine, a part she played for 3 years.

Thank you LaChanze.

Brenda is part of the amazing trio of Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, who wrote the score for the Broadway musical of The Color Purple. Brenda’s grace, beauty and soul are a rare and wondrous combination. Looking absolutely splendid, she spoke to us about her musical journey with an infectious passion. Her assistant Melanie Holmes welcomed us with the most beautiful of smiles and offers of fruit and water.

I was struck by Brenda’s family stories about her great-grandmother, Christina Platt, a former slave who migrated from Marion S.C. to Waterbury, MA, after Emancipation.  This amazing, courageous woman has influenced Brenda as much as her mother and father who are both musicians. Music is what Brenda grew up with so its’ no wonder her many hit songs have been nominated for numerous Grammy Awards.

Brenda’s great-grandmother had 11 children and she put each one of them through University. The photograph below of her takes pride of place in the hallway as you enter Brenda’s house. It was taken for a local newspaper in Massachusetts, when they did a story on her. She was clearly a woman who didn’t suffer fools so when asked to go to a specific location to be photographed she said ‘if they want to photograph me, they can come here where I am weeding in my garden.’ And they did!  She lived to be 101 years old. What a wonderful inspirational story of a feisty woman with exemplary courage and fortitude despite seemingly impossible odds.

Brenda's Great-Grandmother - Christina Platt- A Freed Slave

One of my favourite songs written by Brenda is “If Only For One Night” as sung by Luther Vandross. Music & Lyrics by Brenda Russell

By the time we left Brenda’s beautiful home, the crew was smitten with her vivacious charm and sweet warmth.

A Smitten Crew! From left to right: Gale Tattersall(DOP) Brenda Russell, Claudia Katanagyia (Sound) Nathaniel Miller (AC) Shaheen Haq (Producer) Tania Hammidi ( Driver/Runner) and me, Pratibha. (Director)

Angels of Los Angeles

Our friend filmmaker Meena Nanji gave us a home from home.

The writer Ellen Gavin gave us refuge too and cooked a scrumptious dinner where the rather handsome Skylar Cooper turned up in a  fetching cowboy hat. (Given we are on a tight, tight budget with limited resources making it impossible to stay in hotels, both these women were absolute angels.)

Ofunee Obiamiwe, a good friend of Meena’s introduced us to her friend Gale Tattersall who I had read about but never imagined I would ever meet, let alone work with.

Gale Tattersall is a DOP extraordinaire with an impeccable sense of professional commitment, a magician of light and a true gentleman who stepped in at the last minute. Wow we struck gold with Gale. He has shot tons of features, including one of my fave’s The Commitments as well as Tank Girl, The Addams Family, Ghost Ship and many more. Gale is also the DOP on House MD, the TV series with Hugh Laurie and that very cute, hugely talented actress Olivia Wilde

Thank you Angels !

Things I Would Like To Forget About Los Angeles

• Driving on freeways without a GPS, in grid locked traffic worrying about not getting lost and getting to set on time.
• The heavily chlorinated water which gave me lizard skin.
• A couple of arrogant, sexist, racist men at one of our facility houses. They clearly hadn’t seen Asian women like us commanding a crew and equipment and 15 seater van.
• The hassle, angst, uncertainty of unconfirmed DOP’s until the 11^th hour.

Next Up New York!

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