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" I had a list of 10 rules when we started 'Strong Island,' and one of them was, 'Yance will never appear on camera with sync sound.' "

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" White communities - and I exempt poor white communities from this - have power over their representation. White people have the ability to define themselves, to exert their agency in a way that they get to be believed. No one believes black people. No one. Until a white person vouches for them. "

" Being nominated is such a tremendous honor. An Oscar win for me and for the 'Strong Island' team would be the cap to an incredible journey. But it would also mean that my brother will not disappear from history. "

" Our blackness and how to survive being black in America was something that our parents instilled in us extraordinarily well. "

" Black lives are too easy to take in America because we don't want to question why people are so afraid of black and brown people to begin with. And that's what I want 'Strong Island' to do. "

" We have to deal with the way that race influences our criminal justice system. "

Criminal Justice

" I have been gender-nonconforming my entire life. "

" People come up and say, 'Thank you' for showing a black family loving their masculine-presenting child and for undoing the myth of black people as being rabidly homophobic. "

" 'Trumbo' is conventional in its structure, mixing interviews with archival footage. What I enjoyed most about the film was its liberal use of his own personal letters to friends and family, performed dramatically by well-known actors. "

Friends And Family

" When I use the word 'buzz' in successive sentences, it's clearly time for me to stop writing. "

" If I can help one family embrace their child and not displace them and throw them out, I'm happy about that. "

" My father just believed in my mother's ability to do anything. "

" I hope that audiences understand that there is a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address, that there has always been a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address. In fact, our country is built on the precariousness of black lives, the disposability of black lives. "

" There are people who get to be three-dimensional humans in the United States, and there are people who do not. "

" What little return documentary filmmakers get often comes in the form of recognition by their peers and the critics who influence doc audiences around the country. "

" Violence against the other, and the way we otherize people out of fear, has to be examined across the board. "

" When I was making 'Strong Island,' it was very clear to me that my brother's death was a point on a line that stretched back into the 1940s and beyond in my family - and in the nation. "

" 'Strong Island' has been a labor of love and dedication on the part of so many people, that it's just an incredible recognition to be honored. And to be the first trans director - and, I believe, the first African-American trans director - to be nominated for an Academy Award is incredibly, incredibly special to me. "

" If my making history makes it easier for a trans kid at home somewhere to feel more at home in their skin, then I'm so excited about that. "

" The quality of festival Q&As is often a matter of chance. Sometimes the lights come up on movies I loved, and not a single meaningful question is asked. Sometimes it's the opposite. "

" Instincts are a really important guide for any artist, but particularly filmmakers because it takes a lot to stay true to your instincts as a storyteller. "

" Film festivals are usually unpleasant experiences on some level. The lines are ridiculous, the crowds are ridiculous, or the schedules are impossibly arranged: 'You say that there's a film you really want to see? Try the 8 A.M. show! Oh, it's too bad you didn't get to bed until 2 A.M. the night before.' "

" I think fear has been racialised. When you get someone who says 'I was afraid' of a big black guy, that's enough to say, 'Okay, not guilty,' or, 'No indictment.' It's persisted over generations, and it needs to stop. "

" I will never understand how so many young women can go out in the freezing cold wearing so little clothing. "

" It would be easier for people to grasp that gender, sex, and sexual orientation are different things if we had as much imagination in real life as we do when we are making our movies. "

" 'Strong Island' is slang for Long Island, New York. And it really grew out of - what may surprise people, it really grew out of the very vibrant hip-hop scene that, you know, is located and still generates artists out of Long Island. "

" Grief is a very complicated monster. There's no real exorcising of it. It has a different form every day. "

" Grief, for me, is a moment-to-moment experience. "

" I love marching bands. "

" My brother's death picked up my life and put it down somewhere else. I had an image of myself in my mind as a working artist, and when he died, all of that changed. "

" I worked at 'POV' for five years before I told one person about my brother. "