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" There's a line that runs between everyone and their ancestors, and you cannot sever that. Maybe disassociate from those ideas but not how you are connected to them. But, you can realise how you've benefited and change how you raise your kids. "

Dee Rees

Ancestors

Ideas

Connected

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" There's a dearth of media around young black women and certainly a dearth of LGBT media for people of color. "

" I was always going to direct. I wasn't going to hand my characters over to anyone else. "

" 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.' "

" History informs where we are and how we got here. "

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

" 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. "

" Knowing what you want is not a shortcoming. Let people deal with their own anxieties. "

" I feel a lot of folks, like teenagers, can feel like outcasts. "

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

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System

" Before Charlottesville, it might have been easy to dismiss the plot of 'Mudbound' as no longer relevant. Now, I feel like audiences will be more receptive to the material - and to interrogating their personal histories after watching it. "

" 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. "

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Person

You

" I want more images onscreen because when I was growing up, I think, like, that one kiss in 'The Color Purple' was the one thing that I had. Or 'The Watermelon Woman.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You don't have to make your life look like anybody else says it should look. "

" I think Charlottesville was shocking for some, but it wasn't for me or for my family, I mean, because I grew up in 1980s Nashville. "

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Family

Think

" You don't get to hand footnotes to the audience or explain what you were trying to do and what it's supposed to be. Everything has to be on the screen, and it has to be clear. "

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

" Our statement's on the screen. Awards won't make it better, and a lack of awards won't make it worse. "

" As long as you tell the best story possible, you can trust that people will be able to connect to it. "

" Filmmaking in general is my second career. I thought that writing wasn't practical, so I went to business school and got an MBA, and I worked three years in grant management. "

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

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

Dee Rees

Out

Anything

" New York offers people the anonymity to be themselves without judgment. "

" The only advice I can give is to surround yourself with people who are friends and people who believe in you and your material and who are going to help you take it to the next level. It doesn't mean you don't listen to criticism, but you listen to it and edit it, and you figure out what you can take. "

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

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Burning

Paris

" If I can go three grandmothers back and find a slave, that means someone else can go three grandmothers back and find a slave owner. When you interrogate your histories, it forces you to rethink who you are and where you are. "

" 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. "