Kevin Robinson:  You have most of your success in the theater and stage productions, why choose film all of a sudden?

Phyllida Lloyd:  It came out of doing the stage show of Mamma Mia! I was just lucky that the producer of the stage show who owned the production just decided… I think she thought maybe she’d get more of the spirit of what was in the original by holding on to me, the devil she knew.

KR:  After your widely successful feature debut for Mamma Mia!, why did you decide to take on one of the most powerful figures of the 20th Century as the subject for your followup film?

PL:  Well, I’m always drawn to stories about women who’ve led big lives.   Margaret Thatcher is one of the most controversial characters in British public life and still remains so.  But what struck me about this were the discussions about the rights and wrongs of her policy.  Either she is this sort of monster she-devil or she is the blessed St. Margaret who saved the nation.  This is a film about something else, this is a film about power and about loss of power.  And also a film about gender and class, what it might have felt like to be a lower middle class woman at a time where women were not going into politics.

KR:  There are things going on today in the U.S. that echo the era of Thatcher’s government in the U.K., when you were making the film, did those thoughts cross your mind?

PL:  Yes, it was extraordinary and I think that is something the Old Lady has going through her head.  It’s like Groundhog Day, here we are again.

KR:  Has the former Prime Minister seen the film?

PL:  Not to my knowledge, no.  She’s supposed to not really watch stuff about herself. She never read newspaper reports about herself, which I think is a very good move.  It’s a very cool thing to not put yourself in the front lines of those savage reports about her,  but get it all moderated by a third party.

KR:  How do you think the U.K. audience is going to react to The Iron Lady?

PL:  A lot of people have reacted to it and haven’t seen it,  which is kind of wild.  I think it’s going to be controversial.  I think my generation are very entrenched in their views about Margaret Thatcher.  The generation below me who did not live through the 1980′s, I think will come at it with a completely open mind.  I think they will be interested to know about our history, but also hopefully, will be able to engage with the sort of universal story of it.  In some way it’s intended to be a story about you and me, it’s just that her life was large.  It’s like our lives in which we are all dealing with career and your family, how do you balance one against the other, what is the cost of investing a massive amount in a career. It’s something we kind of take for granted with male politicians, but when we see it played out by a woman, suddenly the whole thing is in real relief about how there always is a cost for everything we do.

KR:  Beside her obvious talent and the fact that you worked with her in Mamma Mia!, why did you choose Meryl Streep for the title role, and not to be outdone, Alexandra Roach as the young Margaret Thatcher?

PL:  Everybody agreed that we needed a superstar to play Margaret Thatcher, she was a larger than life character, she had a massive presence, a massive personality, and a massive charisma.  All of which Meryl has.  And this was a titanic role, she had to play her from 49 years old  to 85.  She had to play Margaret Thatcher before she had the voice change and after she had the voice change.  It was a technical feat, but also it was beyond the technical challenge of it, it was an emotional challenge.  Meryl responded to the screenplay very much, not from the biopic aspect of it, but from the human story.  She was interested in the invisibility of old age.  That was such a revelation talking about marginal groups, that an old person is not necessarily big box office, metaphorically speaking.   I hope this old person (Thatcher) will be big office.  Alexandra came in and read for the role and there was just something about her that felt to me like she came from another time.  A natural wit that seemed to shine with Meryl’s own wit.  There was something in her, an inner seriousness that we responded to.

KR:  You made mention about strong women in history and being in male dominated arenas,  we can talk about the film industry.  You’re a female director in an industry dominated by men, what are your thoughts about that?

PL:  Well I have to say I have never realized quite that I was a woman director until I stepped onto the James Bond studio at Pinewood on the first day of Mamma Mia! and saw more than 100 men standing there all greeting each other and saying “good morning, sir” , “good morning, gov’ner”, and then turning to me and thinking “what do we call her?”.  There isn’t really a word for it.  I really, in that moment, realized that I was the outsider and it was quite a shock.  I was an exception in Mamma Mia! because I had something that already existed, I had this product.  Had it been an original idea, it’s very unlikely I would have done my first movie at Universal Studios with that kind of budget.  It is a problem for women, and it’s vexing because I think there’s a huge audience out there and I think the stories we want to tell don’t fit into that pre-packed box that a studio has in it’s mindset. I’m segueing off to age and gender, it’s tricky there aren’t enough movies for an increasingly aging population.  Old people means anyone over 50 in the studio’s eyes.

KR:  What advice do you have for young girls or women who want to get involved in the film industry?

PL:  I think things really are changing.  I think that…inch by inch we are getting there and we have to have courage that there are so many untold stories that people want to hear.  Girls have to help each other.  People in my position have got to give as many girls we can a leg up onto the wagon train and see if we can carry a few people forward.

KR:  What do you hope people get out of seeing The Iron Lady?

PL:  Maybe they’ll be less likely to pass by an old lady on the street and not notice her, but think “there’s a very old person there, I wonder what kind of big life they might’ve had”.

Grace Gipson: I noticed that you have a background in English and Education and was curious on what made you decide to become a filmmaker?

Alrick Brown:   I wanted to have a bigger classroom and film was a way to reach more people.  But I have always admired film, I have always loved it and I am always going to be a teacher and an activist and film is just the way for me right now.  I am a writer, I’m a bunch of things, so yeah I guess film is the medium.

GG:  How were you able to make sure that each of the tales had an equal voice to form the overall narrative?

AB:  I didn’t think about it in a sense of equal voice because your always going, when your watching a film you have to know whose perspective it is, whose story it is. And I knew it was the young girl’s story basically and the young boy’s story and all the other stories/elements gave you perspectives on this historical event.  However the even weight that you are speaking of is just making sure that the audience cares about all of the characters. You either fall in love with them, listen to them, respect them, or just care what happens to them.

GG:  Being a filmmaker of color do you feel obligated to bring such stories as Kinyarwanda to the big screen?

AB: Well it’s an interesting question because I’m Jamaican born grew up in Jersey, I’ve lived in France, lived in Africa and this film isn’t essentially an African film.  I was working with Rwandans to make it, so it happens to be black characters, African characters and an African American lead actress Cassandra Freeman (who plays Lt. Rose), but otherwise you know it’s a strong story. As a filmmaker I try to tell good strong stories to humanize and I’m always going try to make sure to portray African American people in the best light to kind of counter the history of negative portrayals, but I just want to tell good stories. As an African American filmmaker I do have a responsibility since I do have a camera and the voice, I do have a responsibility that I make sure that I am doing something meaningful when putting our people on screen.

GG:  Do you see any obstacles as an African American filmmaker?

AB:  There are tons of obstacles. Hollywood is a sexist, racist place and it won’t admit to that openly. You can see examples of certain black people who have excelled and you look at the numbers and you look at the statistics, it is still a very low number of us who participate.   A young white filmmaker can get an easier deal sometimes.  Filmmaking is a tough business for anyone black or white but you know just like the Depression hits an entire economy, it still hits the black people and poor people harder. So if it’s tough already, then just imagine what it is for a black filmmaker or female filmmaker. Our European counterparts can make a bad film here and bad film there and over the years have gotten more chances and so they can still take that risk.

GG: So with Kinyarwanda being considered an indie film by mainstream Hollywood standards, if you had the chance to make bigger budget films, for example,  The Help,  would you and why or why not?

AB: I’m a filmmaker and I look for any opportunities where I can tell good stories  and I try to bring my own personal humanity and my level of craft to any project that I do, irrespective of what the project is or whether it’s a studio or not. The real question is will they let me be myself, will they let me tell the story in a way that I’d like to tell it? I haven’t see The Help, I heard it’s a good movie, but again it’s another example of how we have to be, we can’t just tell a story about black people where we need a white character to mediate the experience. So the black characters are caught up in the Hollywood system and they get comfortable and they say that otherwise people will not see the movie and it’s true the way people have been socialized in this culture. When you don’t have the white character to help along the journey it’s harder to sell it.  I just want to tell good stories, whether it’s in the studio, whether it’s independent or a short film. And if I have a short film in mind I’m going to grab my camera and I’m going to make it.  I’m not going to be a slave to the system because the system dictates me to be a certain way.

GG:  What do want viewers to gain or take away after watching Kinyarwanda?

AB: You know, there’s a couple of things.  Rarely do you get a film of this… and I will say caliber because we are often criticized for not having quality on the screen, when we do political things, when we deal with African Americans or African American subject matter.  I think the quality is there and that’s a testament to my cast and crew and all the work we put in to it.  It’s easier to get a film made but it’s harder to get them seen.  So you know people are getting what they asked for, and I wish our numbers were higher and I wish more people are going out to theaters because they can’t complain now about not giving them what they want. Its there…it’s an alternative to Tyler Perry, it’s an alternative to other things.  On a purely human and spiritual level this film deals with religion and the whole positive portrayal of black people, positive portrayal of Islam. It does so many things, it infuses the idea of forgiveness as opposed to vengeance. So I would hope that this film does something that makes forgiveness a part of the dialogue.

GG:  What do have to look forward to in new and upcoming projects?

AB:  I just wrapped on an ABC episode of a new series out early next year called Final Witness that’s going to be airing on prime time. And then I’m gearing up to start work on a new film called Somebody to Love.  It’s a quaint little piece set in the US. It’s a little bit more relaxed.  It’s a love story and soul music is at the heart of it.

GG:  I thank you and wish you success with this film and your future endeavors.

AB:  Thank you very much.  I very much appreciate it.

Kristine Gerolaga:  Tell us about this movie.

Sim Sarna:  The way the movie is structured is it has intersecting storylines that all kind of converge and come together. The story is basically driven by the kidnapping case and all of the other characters are, in some way, connected. And they all have female-male relationships, be it husband and wife, brother and sister, and it’s just a very honest portrayal. They all have their problems, or their demons, to work through. As a producer, it’s really tough to get in there and get your hands dirty with retooling the script because when it’s so personal (to director Matt Leutwyler), when it becomes like an auteur type thing, all you can do is really support the material and help the director see his vision through.

KG:  How did you get involved with this project?

SS:  I’ve known Matt for years. We actually worked on another movie together called Lower Learning.  We really enjoyed working together on that. Matt wasn’t the director, but he was a producer with me on that, and we realized that we had the same sensibilities and that we’d love to work together again. Luckily this project came up and I’m very lucky to be a part of it.

KG:  How did you get into producing?

SS:  I’m from Long Island, New York originally and I always wanted to be a part of the film industry my entire life and during high school I applied to the USC film school. When I did get in, it was just time for me to pack up and move across the country. My parents were completely supportive. And it’s a great school. You learn a lot and meet a lot of great people. I went to school with people like Josh Schwartz, Jason Reitman, amongst others, in fact, the director of Lower Learning, Mark Lafferty, is a great friend of mine. So being able to collaborate with that kind of talent was amazing. While I was in school, I interned for Robert Redford, New Line Cinema, and right after school my first job was as an assistant for James Cameron and his producing partner Jon Landau just a few years after Titanic and it was just a great experience. I worked my way up to a development executive there, so I was developing projects like Solaris and eventually I wanted to branch out and do more on my own and produce my own projects. I’ve always been attracted to independent film, love studio films as well, but independent films are just more me. So I was happier doing that and having a more controlled environment.

KG:  That actually brings me right into my next question, which is what kinds of movies do you personally look to produce?

SS:  That’s a really good question. I love comedies, I love thrillers, and horror films as well, if they’re done well. Love, love, love dramas. There’s just no specific genre of film. I’m proud of Answers To Nothing more than anything I’ve ever worked on. If you can tell a good story, if the writers and directors have a great vision for it, and if I can help out in some way to see their vision through, I’m on board. I’m all about great stories, great acting, great filmmakers, and good collaboration. Because it’s not a one man show. One person can’t do it all. And if they try to do it all, it’s irresponsible filmmaking.

KG:  What was the budget of this film?

SS:  It was under 2 million dollars, which is about as low as it can get, as far as I’m concerned, for making a good movie in LA while paying your crew well. We’re a completely union movie. We were under the SAG low budget agreement so the actors didn’t get paid their normal salaries at all. Dane Cook was in the midst of a huge comedy tour so he was selling out arenas and then flying just to come to our set to work for $599 a day. And that just goes to show you how much he cared about the movie and how much all the other actors cared about the movie as well. Elizabeth Mitchell was doing Lost and another TV show called V at the same time so she had to transition between three characters while making this movie.

KG:  What is the hardest part of your job?

SS:  Everything is difficult. I have to make sure the script is in a place to attract the best talent. Then I have to go out there and get the talent with the director and that means begging agents to send the script to their top clients to read it for very little money and just hoping and praying that they’ll read the material and respond to it quickly because we have a very small window of time. And then we have to hope that all these actors that we get together for the ensemble are available to shoot. Then we have to figure out the schedule. Then we have to hire the best possible crew while working for very little money. And we want this movie to look fantastic! We shot this movie in 24 days and with 42 locations. So that was very tough. We lost an actress two days before we were set to shoot. I had to scramble and fortunately, we got Kali Hawk who did an amazing job. We really lucked out. And then you have to oversee the post production process.

KG:  And you love it.

SS:  I do love it. It’s a lot of fun. Especially when you get to work on a movie like this and you get a good response. There’s no better feeling than watching a movie that you worked so hard on and watching the audience and receiving the accolades and hearing the applause. It’s giving me chills just talking about it right now. All the hard work you put into it, it’s worth it when the end credits roll and you hear that applause. And people are coming up to you and congratulating you on a job well done. Best feeling of all. If someone can take something away from the movie, that means we did our job. That’s the important thing.

Charles Davis:
Your film shows how the Bayaka Pygmy people have sustained much of their tradition and culture amidst such adversities as their forests being cleared by logging companies, illegal gaming, and a local government set on establishing a more contemporary lifestyle for its inhabitants. How difficult was it for you to accomplish this without the local government shaping what you could or could not depict in your film?

Lavinia Currier:
Really interesting question, people ask how was it filming 16 hours from the capitol, or filming with snakes and bugs and stuff. What was the biggest obstacle? Local government. But it wasn’t for that reason, that they didn’t like what we were saying, it was because it’s the fifth poorest country in the world, nobody understood what a film was and everybody wanted something from it. So some of the local officials would come with their guys with machine guns and would say “You’re not filming today unless you give us X”, and we had made a vow to begin with that we weren’t going to bribe anybody so we made a deal with the Minister of Culture when we first came in and we paid the location fee, and then we thought that gave us permission to film, but no. The local guys came and said he [Minister of Culture] has no right, even the Minister of Finance came 16 hours from the capitol and said that the Minister of Culture had no right to take your money because I’m the Minister of Finance. So that kind of dysfunction in Africa is so crippling for their economies and for young people who want to succeed and have jobs because there’s always somebody like that, that comes down and messes it up and we experienced that big time.

CD:
What types of obstacles did you encounter when shooting in areas so far removed from “normal” amenities?

LC:
We decided to shoot this film in 35mm because the cameras don’t break. With electronics like digital cameras you have problems with humidity, and once they break you have to have a team of technicians to fix it, where as with a 35mm camera it’s big, it’s heavy and it’s hard to move around but it’s kind of like fixing an old truck, you can mechanically fix something. So we decided for that reason to go with 35mm work-horse cameras. So we sacrificed being able to move around quickly like documentary style filmmaking, but we had solid cameras and it gave the film more of a formal and less of a documentary look. So we didn’t really have technical problems.

The problems we experienced were with some of the crew. To begin with, the crew was from Los Angeles and they were in culture shock. First of all these white guys come to an airport where it’s 100% African faces and they’re like “Whoa.” We were 16 miles from the capitol and early on some of the jokes were “Get me a Starbucks or call Pizza Hut.” We had no cell phones, no communications so some of the crew were not comfortable.  We had warned them that this wasn’t going to be luxury safari, it was going to be like camping, but they weren’t prepared for it so we had to go through some crew and we had to replace some of the Americans with French people.

CD:
I see, because the French are more comfortable with those conditions.

LC:
More comfortable and the language barrier, and so forth, so in the end we ended up with a crew. But that was one of the obstacles, keeping the crew happy. That was hard for me also because I’m a woman, and I think the crew felt like, I think any crew feels like when the director comes in they want to prove that the director doesn’t know what they’re doing, because everyone on the crew likes to say “If I were directing this film I could do better.” You know they’re thinking like, “She doesn’t know what she is doing. I could do this better.” So you’ve already got that at your back even here in San Francisco or L.A. or whatever. And if you’re a woman and you’ve done two feature films, which isn’t a lot for a woman director, they’re thinking that even more so. Then I was not afraid to be there, I was walking around barefoot, I wasn’t afraid of snakes, I wasn’t afraid of elephants, so it was tough with me and the crew because they already have this kind of feeling and then they see that I’m not afraid of the kind of things they’re afraid of. And so we had to work that out and that took a while and in some cases we didn’t work that out, but that was a dynamic that was exaggerated by the environment. But I have to say that even those guys who didn’t want to be there and although they would have rather been shooting a Mercedes commercial on the lot in L.A., even those guys in the end they were won over by the Bayaka, because these people are so great to be with. You couldn’t help but feel inspired by the Bayaka because these are people who have nothing, yet they can make a happy time of anything. They put us to shame.

CD:
You’ve had the opportunity to write, produce and direct the majority of your films, which do you like better?

LC:
Directing. I love directing. It’s like being in the eye of a storm, there’s all this chaos around you and you’re in the eye of the storm and you remain calm. Your job as director as I see it, I’m sure every director has their own idea about this, is to keep the vision of what your wanting to do alive. Otherwise the crew, the actors, they forget because like I said all this crisis are happening, like actors freaking out, people walking off and then you forget what you’re doing because your desperate to get your actors back or to find the money or whatever it is.

CD:
With regards to women filmmakers, there appears to be, at least on the surface, more and more female film makers in the industry now. Do you agree with that and if so, why do you think that is occurring?

LC:
I think women in our culture have opportunities now that when I was in school they didn’t have, clearly they do. But one thing I do notice is that we have a lot of women filmmakers but a lot of the time they have to play the male game, they have to do it the same way the guys do it. But what I’m really looking forward to is for women to be able to show different kinds of stories from a feminine stand point because they have the courage that story could be interesting, that story could pass. Like the movie Hurt Locker, it’s a really good film, but she’s doing a male film.
Yeah, I mean that’s a war film, it’s gritty, it’s male. So I think that not only getting the numbers of women but allowing the kinds of films to shift so we’re not just always getting the same formula.

CD:
What message do you hope to convey to the viewers of this film?

LC:
That there is a possibility for people to live in harmony with their environment. It was done for thousands and thousands of years, it can be done again. We shouldn’t give up. I feel privileged to have spent 6 months with these people and to have had an experience with people that you really feel positively about and I hope that people sitting in the theater for an hour and forty-five minutes might have some taste of that.

Kevin Robinson:  Are you an athlete?

Amy Wendel:  I was an avid mountain climber and along with my dad our aim was to climb the 7 Summits, the highest mountain on every continent.  He accomplished that goal and I got halfway there.  I was really into mountain climbing.

KR:  The reason why I ask you that is because I was wondering why you used high school women’s power lifting as the backdrop for your first feature.

AW:  When I first started out, there was this small south Texas town called San Diego, Texas and then became familiar with Benavides about 15 miles south of there, I did a lot of research and I wanted the story to grow organically.  The first person I interviewed was a student at this school and she was into power lifting.  I had no idea what that was, but I was really interested.  I’ve seen one girl squat about 510 pounds!  It’s a very rigorous sport, very painful.  But also very rewarding.  I thought it would be cinematic and I like to do things that  I feel people haven’t seen before.  I also like the idea that they (the girls) are all shapes and sizes.

KR:  In this film Luz is the lead character, would you say she is someone  people, especially young women, should root for and/or admire?

AW:  I think that young people watching this are not going to always root for her, because we are in some ways accustomed to characters that we always like.  But I do think they will understand her.  I hope they understand the decisions she makes, why she makes them and especially respect and admire her turning her life around.  There are times in the film that people will probably want to wring her neck and I’m OK with that.  All of us can remember growing up as a teenager and doing things that infuriated our parents and infuriate our friends.  We can relate to that, that’s how it is.  So, I think it’s complicated.

KR:  So far, all of your projects have had female protagonists, including women of color.  Is this a conscious decision?

AW:  That’s a good question.  It’s not a conscious decision, it’s just what I ruminate on, it’s where I go.  It’s what I get interested in and inspired by.

KR:  Being a female filmmaker, what do you notice in the film industry and were you given any advice?

AW:  I notice that it’s tough for everybody.   Coming out of film school there’s a very close cadre of filmmakers that I’m still friends with and we kind of have each other’s back and whether they’re male or female it’s just tough all around.  But I do think that it’s especially tough for women.  I’ve been told by certain studios that “oh, it’s a story about a woman, you won’t get money for it”.  Really? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  Or, “we can’t market that to boys who are between the ages of 17-30″.  I am wondering about how long it’s going to take to finance the next film about a woman.  There are a lucky few who get their next project right away.

KR:  Why did you decide to be a filmmaker?

AW:  I like the idea of telling stories through images.  It came to me late in life, I taught in Los Angeles for 4 years, 7th grade History and English.  I really loved teaching, but wanted to explore my own creativity.  I felt that I wanted to create my own stories and that’s when I went to film school.

KR:  Who are some of your influences?

AW:  Ken Loach, the film Half Nelson, Cassavettes, Spike Lee.  Different films at different times. Foreign films, French New Wave, it really depends.

KR:  You made All She Can with your husband and filmmaker Daniel Meisel.  You have 3 sons and you have dogs that are male, so you are surrounded by a lot of testosterone in the household.  When you make these films with a female protagonist and female point of view, what do you hope your boys learn about women as they are coming up?

AW:  I hope that they have a sense of women being strong and maybe make mistakes, but they navigate their own way through the world.  I want my sons to be friends with girls and have those kinds of relationships of respect and trust.  That’s very important to me.

Kristine Gerolaga: Was there a specific event in your life that compelled you to make this documentary?

Lynn Hershman Leeson: The event was that Stanford had acquired my archives. I was getting things ready to give to them and I noticed all these boxes of tapes. They had been in my studio and I was traveling with them and I started to watch them again. When I started to make this [documentary], to record this information, I wasn’t a filmmaker. I was just trying to create some sort of a record, like a scrapbook. But then I became a filmmaker and looked at this material and realized how important this was. This was a vital and invisible part of American history that nobody knew about and this was the only material. So, at that point, I felt obliged to make it into the film it became.

KG: Why did it take 40 years for this project to be completed?

LHL: That’s kind of a complicated question. When I first started shooting it in the sixties, I was only shooting people in my living room and trying to get a sense of what was going on and continued to shoot that history over the four decades. But now, there has been some significant change in the status of women in the arts. I wanted to tell the story to kind of honor the women who told me their stories so honestly and passionately. And also, technology exists now so you can make a film with no outtakes. So that all the information could be put online and all the people can learn about everything that has happened in the past. So, it’s just the right time.

KG: And what are your thoughts on the way that women’s art is received today?

LHL: There’s still a lot of difficulty in having your work shown, having your work sold, in being taken seriously as an artist. The difference now is that there are a few enlightened philanthropists who have come out to the scene and they’re making significant changes. For instance, one group is giving a million dollars a year to the MOMA in New York to buy women’s artwork and that’s going to make a difference to get women in the collection, to get them empowered, have their work purchased for a proper amount rather than the lowest amount that’s available. So there are some changes, but still bad enough.

KG: Do you know of any emerging female artists of today that you think people should know about?

LHL: Well, there are some in my film. But I think people should just keep their eyes open and look at shows of young and emerging artists and judge for themselves.

KG: At the end of the film, you talk about how, naturally, there is so much footage that didn’t make it into the final cut. Can you talk about the footage that didn’t make it in as opposed to the footage that did?

LHL: They follow different stories, different trajectories. I accumulated so much footage, for instance, I could have 17 hours of footage for something but only 3 and a half minutes got into the film. So there are different stories one could have told and I think it was important to get everything out there so people can see all that important material and history of what went on.

KG:  What do you hope the audience takes away from this film?

LHL:  I think the audience should know what contributions women, women of color, have made to the arts in America and what a struggle it was. The is really a story about repression, and prejudice, and freedom of expression, and the struggle to reinvent oneself in order to not lose one’s voice. And with a sense of humor, continue to work and be empowered.

KG: Did you always aspire to be an artist?

LHL:  Well, I couldn’t do anything else. By the time I was 2 years old, I was drawing and writing and I literally couldn’t function in a normal way. So, I had no choice (laughs).

KG: You’ve directed and written successful films. What is your experience being a female filmmaker?

LHL: I think it’s easier. I really do. I forwarded a response I got from a gallery to a producer in Los Angeles and they said “This is worse than Hollywood!” And I think it was really good training to go through the negativity and real rudeness of the power structure of being an artist. Making films has been considerably easier. People often don’t know your gender when you’re looking at film or when you submit it to a festival. In galleries, it seems they do and that makes a difference in choices.

KG: Most of your crew is female. Did you intend for it to be that way?

LHL:  Not really. But it was the same as funding. It was almost all funded by these enlightened philanthropists. But it was several generations of women who helped to produce the work.

KG: What’s next for you?

LHL:  I’ve got a couple projects. One is completely crazy. It’s done with Tilda Swinton and Marilyn Manson. I’m going to go see Tilda in about three weeks to figure that one out. And then after that I want to do a film on Tina Modotti.

Jennifer Vo Le chats with actor turned director Vera Farmiga about her thought provoking debut feature “Higher Ground”.

Kristine Gerolaga : What was it like working on a project that is so personal to you?

Doris Yeung : Good and bad (laughs). I mean, of course, I hear that when you’re too close to your subject, you can’t see it. I think that was definitely true. It’s harder to be non-judgmental and to see all the possibilities when you’re so close because you only have your way of looking at things. But on the other hand, you know what you want. I mean, that’s a plus, and you know the emotions and the feelings that you’re going for.

KG: How much of the film is fiction and how much of it is based on true events?

DY : I would say the film is inspired by true events. Basically, my mother was killed in a home invasion burglary and that inspired me to write the script that became this film. I would say that sixty percent is inspired by the real facts and forty percent is totally fictional.

KG: You mentioned that this film is a commentary on the American Dream and its influence on immigrant families. Can you comment more on your opinion of the idea of the American Dream?

DY :   The American Dream. It’s what you make it to be. For some it’s reality, for others it’s a mirage. And I think there’s a lot of publicity, media, television shows, and movies about the attractive side of the American Dream.  Meaning success, financial and otherwise. Basically the American Dream is you come to this country, you work hard, you keep your nose clean, and you’ll achieve the American Dream, whatever that may be to you. But you rarely hear about the other side, which is, is there a price to pay? Are there consequences of achieving the American Dream? What happens once you’ve gotten what you’ve wanted? Also, what happens when you don’t get what you want? What about those people who don’t succeed? I’m sure there’s a lot of those people, too.  So, in a way, when you try to sell something, you talk it up.  I mean, that’s great.  One of the great things about America is that it isd true, this is a land where anything is possible because it’s a totally capitalistic country.  Money makes everything go round.  And on the other side, not everyone can make it. There’s also a price to pay for success sometimes. And those are the stories that I’m interested in.

KG: That was actually my next question! What kind of stories do you want to tell as a female writer and director?

DY : I like the underdog. I like the people who expect to succeed. I like the darker side of things. I’m really interested in immigrant stories. Cross cultural stories and stories that talk about identity, home.

KG : In another interview, you mention that you don’t see the situation for Asian American films improving and your reasons for that. That said, do you think there’s a solution for this?

DY :   I think it would be a financially based solution. I mean, for sure, there’s more of an Asian American presence in television shows and media than there was ten, fifteen, twenty, years ago but it’s still very marginal I find, and it’s not the main story. They’re (actors) not getting the feature role.  And I’m like, wow, it actually hasn’t improved that much.  People want to see people who look like them.  But, talking about a capitalistic society, if people want to get financial gains from somewhere else, for instance, China, they would want to hire a Chinese or Asian actress because it would be more sell-able in China and Asia if they want to get into that market.  I think slowly, because of Asia’s increasing financial influence on the world, which is superseding America’s influence, you’ll slowly see that American films and television will try to cater a bit more to Asian films because they want to get into the market.  Kind of what they’re doing now. They’re sticking an Asian actor in to meet a quota.  But, I think, in the future they’re (media) going to do it to appeal to whatever market they’re trying to get into because it’s financially lucrative. Fortunately, China is on its way up. But, for instance, Africa isn’t on its way up so they’re not going to stick in an African character to appeal to Africa because they don’t care about the African film market. There’s an upside and downside to everything.

KG : How does this situation affect your work as an Asian American director?

DY : Well, America is still the number one film factory in the world. I’ve been living in Europe for the last ten years and eighty percent of the films we see there, and even in Asia, are American. But I think it affects me in a positive way because I’m kind of a mix of things. I’m American, but I’m Asian, but also a little European now because I’ve lived there for ten years so I can cross different cultural boundaries. And I have experience making films here in the U.S. I went to film school in the U.S. So, for me, I get to pick and choose the best of each place and let them influence my work. I enjoy making films in the U.S.  This is my first feature film, it was made in the U.S.

KG : Here in the Bay Area!

DY : Yes, here in the Bay Area. It was hard to stay in the Bay Area. Everyone told me to go to L.A. because it’s easier to get actors and it’s cheaper. But for me, everything is about authenticity and to keep the authenticity of the film meant to keep it in the Bay Area. What happened was based here and I’m from here.

KG : So then, what made you want to become a filmmaker?

DY: Actually, everyone asked me the same question. I think when I was six or five, and I went to see Star Wars or Superman, and I was so enveloped in this film. I felt like it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And it was like transporting me to Mars or something. I just loved how a film could do that. So, I said, that’s my job. I want to make other people feel the same way. And from there I tried my best to get into filmmaking.

Rhami Moura-Yameen:  Tell me about this film, being your first full length feature.

Rashaad Ernesto Green:  Absolutely, I was at NYU grad school and had made a number of shorts and had decided that I wanted to go off and do the real thing.  I was inspired by my actual family for this one.  I have a family member who went through something similar to the father character in the film where his child was also in transition.  I decided to make a piece of art that investigated that scenario and a film that related to families that might be going through something similar.

RM:  Do you think the Latino and Black communities especially will go see this on the big screen?

REG:  That’s the hope.  I feel like a lot of families are going through the similar things, even if they don’t want to talk about it. 

RM:  How did you select the three main leads for their roles?

REG:  Esai (Morales) and Judy (Reyes)  are wonderful, accomplished, professional actors that haven’t necessarily gotten their due.  Judy just came off of Scrubs, which was a great television show, but she has not necessarily shown her chops and I guess I wanted to give her an opportunity to do so.  With Esai Morales, I was a fan of  his since I was a child with the film La Bamba when I was 8 years old and my brother and I would rehearse lines in the living room and the kitchen from what we thought was probably one of the top performances in the last quarter century.  He also has not been given his due as an actor.  I always felt that he should have a role that he was able to chew on.  Then it was a matter of trying to find this miracle child, which I found in Harmony Santana (Michael/Vanessa).  I went on a search for a couple months in New York City to find the real deal.  I was in 18 and over clubs at night, I was down on Christopher St., I was in dance workshops.  I found Harmony at a parade in Queens where she was working at an HIV prevention booth.

RM:  So you did your due diligence.

REG:  Yeah, there’s one thing I won’t settle for, it’s mediocrity.  I need it to be as authentic as it could be.  That’s the only way the story could have worked.

RM:  Why did you decide to become a filmmaker?

REG:  I was an actor first.  It wasn’t long before I realized how little power I had as an artist by leaving it up to the industry to decide what direction I was going to go in.  I decided to go back to school and study filmmaking so I could write and direct the stories I wanted to see on the screen.

RM:  I want you to tell me about Mi Alma Films.

REG: Mi Alma Films was my creation while in grad school.  I try to make films about the human experience and our commonality.  I make films that are from my heart, that are from my voice and about issues that affect us all.

RM:  What is your relationship with Spike Lee?

REG:  Spike was a professor of mine at NYU and I was also in a film by him called Inside Man.  I’ve also been a long time admirer of his.

RM:  What do you think of the images of people of color on the big screen lately?

REG:  In a lot of mainstream movies, as Latino and as African American, sometimes we’re still the butt of the joke, where still the first to die in any action film.  In a lot of ways we are very expendable, which is unfortunate.  Which is why it’s kind of our duty as Latino and Black artists, especially independent artists, to reverse that.  I think with the advance of technology and the ability to make films cheaper and cheaper, you’re going to see our stories start to be told more and more that investigate the complexities of our culture and our identity.

RM:  Do you have anything else in the works?

REG:  Right now I’m working on my next script and I’m also on the look out for additional material.  Anybody who has a script out there that might be in tune or in line with my voice, I’m willing to take a look at as well.