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" For me, Sundance always felt big. It's not the only way to make your way, but for me, it was definitely that critical link between struggling artist, kind of working on my own, to actually working professionally and being connected and being seen. "

Dee Rees

Artist

Own

My Own

Related Quotes:

" It's a failure of imagination if you can only write what you know - we have to be able to imagine different worlds. "

" I've always liked to write, but I never thought I could make a career out of it. "

" I can't put anything out that's not me. "

Dee Rees

Out

Anything

" There's a lot of power in saying no to big things that you don't want to do in order to say yes to the kind of things that really inspire you. "

" People have almost been lulled into complacency because there are no signs over the water fountains. But the signs have been in the policies. There's still housing discrimination and wage discrimination. "

" My ultimate dream was just to be an auteur. "

" You're your own person, and it's about you. I'm my own person, and it's about me. Everyone has their own life. "

Dee Rees

Person

You

" The enemy is the system. And the system is made up of people, and we have a choice in that. "

Dee Rees

Enemy

System

" Creatively, most of my influences come from the literary world: Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara. Writers are my heroes. "

" For me, books were my source of affirmation. Alice Walker, Audrey Lord - it was these authors who wrote about their experiences. It was this weird thing where I was censored in terms of what I could watch but not in terms of what I could read. "

" Both grandfathers fought in different wars. My mother's father fought in World War II, and then my father's father fought in Korea. And they're both these country boys, one from rural Tennessee and one from rural Louisiana - and they never went back home. "

" The best thing in the world is to put two characters who hate each other side by side. Or put two people who love each other far away, so they have to reach for each other with their looks. "

" For me, 'Pariah' is very much about that inner churn. It's about this person's emotional inner life, and that's really what I wanted to bring to 'Bessie.' "

" I just want to tell stories that are meaningful and have inspiration to them; people can watch it and take away something, or maybe they'll just think about themselves differently or think about the world differently. I just want to create characters that live on. "

" Growing up, I was very aware that there weren't many people like me on the screen. "

Dee Rees

People

" I think art breaks down otherness. "

" Art makes you see people as individual, unique human beings. Art, in that way, allows us to see each other in particulate, as opposed to in aggregate. "

" Going into a room and saying, 'I'm a black lesbian' - it's a strike against you. "

" Culture - art, music, literature - is the long game, because it's the way to change people's ideas in a more personal way. "

" I'm always excited about stories that allow me to explore a character and create interesting stories and worlds that we haven't seen before. "

Dee Rees

Interesting

Character

" I'm not a writer that writes every day. I just kind of have ideas. I jot them down when I have them, and when I have enough, I just start. And for me, I start more around noon, and I'm all about feeling. Once there's a theme, I can't not write. "

" For 'Pariah,' people were surprised Kim Wayans was there, but comedians have a dark streak; they're comedians for a reason. "

" I've been around many different lives, many different voices. It was amazing material for a writer. "

" Coming-of-age stories, people roll their eyes. "

" I like 'Paris is Burning' by Jennie Livington. "

Dee Rees

Burning

Paris

" I want people to get from 'Pariah' that it's okay to be you and not to check a box as a parent or child. "

" For kids who are struggling, who are of faith, just reconciling yourself to the fact that God loves you, accepts you for who you are, is a big step in the healing, especially when your biological family is unaccepting of you. "

" With 'Pariah,' at the time, I had just come out. I had a coming out experience, and I was writing about it, transposing my experience as an adult: What would it have been like if I had been a teenager in Brooklyn? The funny thing was people thought I was from Brooklyn. I had to be like, 'No, I'm from Nashville.' "

" Shooting on film is great because it imparts discipline: What do you need to see so you're not finding it in the camera. When I'm shooting, I have the scene in mind, where I'm going to have certain lines. I learned to overlap and to shoot more than I think I need. That was the learning curve. "

" I definitely felt the desire to, like - I definitely knew there was an elsewhere. I definitely knew that, like, if I were going to be free, I needed to be away from, kind of, like, Nashville and kind of get out of the South and get out of the country. "