 So as I mentioned, we're very happy to have four great thinkers really think through and help us think about the legacy of eyes in the prize and I'll start with John else as I mentioned John is the author of true South He was a series producer and cinematographer on eyes in the prize one He's also an accomplished filmmaker and a former director of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. Welcome John else To his left is Sabah Fulayan She is an activist in a filmmaker her Featured debut film who streets which chronicles the activation of communities in Ferguson after the Ferguson uprising Just made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last month. So welcome Sabah Although at the end Sam Pollard Sam is a director producer and an editor He was the director of two episodes in eyes in the prize two Including one that we'll see this afternoon And this is actually gonna be the episode that concludes our showcase and it's the episode title ain't gonna shuffle no more and it's It chronicles the emergence of Muhammad Ali alongside the student movement at Howard University and the gathering of the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana and Sam has a long history. We could talk about him for a long time But he is the director of many films including slavery by another name and August Wilson The ground on which I stand and he's also well known for his collaborations with Spike Lee. Please welcome Sam Pollard And we're very happy to have moderating this conversation Nicole Hannah Jones Nicole is an investigative reporter with the New York Times and has written extensively on race and civil rights So please I'm gonna turn this over to Nicole. Thank you Thank you all for coming out. I'm just gonna get right into it I Think clearly the films in the eyes on the price area tell us about where we came from But I think as we know now from your filmmaking us about but also from the last election that these films Aren't just telling us from whence we came but where we still are and I think One that's that's the magic of the way that you all did the film But also speaks to clearly how little progress or how progress has to constantly we have to fight to maintain that product So I think First question. I'm curious though. I actually want to talk before we get into politics a bit about filmmaking I'm very interested in how did each of you Understand that you could be filmmakers and then how did you actually become filmmakers? Whoever wants to take that first Well You know, I mean I I came of age in the 1960s and you get a lot of slack if you came of age in the 1960s I actually came out of activism came out actually out of the classic civil rights movement and I got interested in still photography during the During the war in Vietnam. I tried to be a still I tried to be a news photographer I tried to be a still photographer Covering a lot of that domestic violence around the war and I didn't have the stomach for it I just I couldn't handle it. I couldn't Place myself between the police and the demonstrators and keep my wits about me. So in desperation I took a job Processing educational films in a film lab And it was an amazing education because I was young I kind of didn't know what I wanted to do and all of a sudden it was my job to watch the same Educational film over a hundred or two hundred times and that was an enforced Education that was it was worth its weight in gold one thing led to another I ended up going to a film school I started out actually heading toward feature filmmaking toward narrative filmmaking and After my second or third low-budget B grade C grade D grade You know low-budget feature I just to say you got to be crazy to spend your life doing this where you're just doing take after take after take of the same Stupid line of dialogue And why not do nonfiction and once once I got involved With documentary there was no turning back and I've been doing it for I don't know 40 years Nothing like nonfiction I So the camera I came into it in a different way was the early 70s, and I was studying at Baruch College I was Looking to our business career, and I was not happy and I got into a film and television workshop at the public television station WNET It was a one-year program They taught you how to shoot and how to edit and how to write scripts and I gravitated to the editing So at the end of the year, I got a job as an apprentice editor on a low-budget feature film titled ganja and hess directed by Bill Gunn and the editor of that film took a liking to me and I Became his assistant for the next three years and he From that feature film he was editing documentaries Which I didn't really know much about because I love feature films narrow the films and like John I thought I wanted to edit feature films But he sort of got me into documentaries and I fell in love with nonfiction films and love the idea that you made the Films to documentaries in the editing room and that was the beginning and like John I've been in it a long time But how did you go from someone interested in business to actually thinking I want to take a class on film Or I want to learn how to do film I was reluctant at first because I loved movies even before you know I was one of those people who used to go home and they used to be a magazine John remembers TV guy And I would go to the TV guy when I was 1415 and I would mark off all the movies I wanted to see and I was just when they came on I would watch them So I love movies But when this teacher of mine at Baruch College told me about this film and television workshop and that you could get a job in the Film and television business. I said my reaction was I like it, but I don't care about you make these things You know, so I was reluctant, but Soon as I that first thing we shot And then the first night I was in the editing room working on a movie over Rewinds it was like magic for me And I was like I was I was in the zone and I wanted to do it From that point on Okay, and how about you? I know what the TV guy is No, first of all, I'm just really really honored to be sitting here with both of you who loves just so much respect and admiration for your work And you know just yeah, that's awesome. I was Two years ago three years ago, I guess I was kind of in a soul-searching process I had just taken the MCAT and I was on the path to medical school and I was Having that kind of internal sense of dread about what I was about to step into and I just couldn't you know I just couldn't find that that spark my older brother is also He's now a doctor and he was doing the same path But just having all this fulfillment and I wasn't getting that so I started to explore different avenues Thinking that you know, I would have this this as a backup plan and see if I could find something and I started to Become vocal and social media honestly and people were responding to it responding to me messaging me privately Coming up to me in person and resonating with the things that I was writing so When Mike Brown was killed August 9th 2014 in Ferguson I just felt like I had to go and be there and somehow be with the people who were there because I Didn't see or know anybody else who was really you know getting physically involved and trying to intervene and what was going on So I went there and I was like, you know, how can I make myself useful? So my background was medicine and by this time I had or you know pre-med and by this time I had some experience with nonprofits and kind of the social work field So that was what I knew. So I said, I think there's a public health risk Associated with people and police facing off like this every day. There's a PTSD that can that can come out of that and so I wanted to kind of Find the grounds to do some deeper research and try to problem solve around that So I get there and I have my little, you know questionnaire and it's like have you been feeling irritable depressed? How is your sleep and I'm looking around me and it's just total chaos everywhere and I'm like well This is not gonna work so I Was with my friend from college and he was a still photographer He just started working in cinematography. It's a field producer with bravol and at first He started taking photos and I started writing and that had been kind of like my secret passion But I just something that I did for myself and the first article that I wrote was something terrible like five things You need to know about Ferguson or something and I just you know, yeah And so I just couldn't it wasn't enough it wasn't containing what I was seeing in front of me And so we kind of naturally started rolling and I started asking questions and after the first interview We did which is actually the opening scene of the film We went back to the house We're staying in and we just were up until like five o'clock in the morning Just alive with energy about what this story was gonna be and all the things we were gonna do and we Didn't know it was a feature film Then we're like we can have a whole channel and it'll be a series and we'll be the news and we'll but you know Just kind of that's that spark that click happened really organically and ever since then You know, this has been the only thing that it takes so much to make these films and do this work And you touch on it in your book It's so it's you know, there's a lot of ups and downs, but I still every day I feel like I have the same energy I can you know, keep going keep going so that's how I kind of Knew that this was gonna be for me I mean that is like mind-boggling to me that you could like be on your way to medical school go to Ferguson and then say I Think I'm gonna make a film and then make a film like how How does that actually like how does that happen? How does it go from you know? A lot of people have thoughts about it would be cool to do this or maybe I should but you've actually done that How how does that happen? I Mean it's all of those cliche things. It's speaking it into existence. It's believing in it It's it's you know a community of people believing in it though Not just me believing in it But this whole documentary community the Ford Foundation and all of the MacArthur Tribeca Sundance a whole list of foundation I mean our thank-you pages You know three minutes long And so it just was people felt the energy of what we were trying to do I think and we were really really committed to trying to Be of service to the people there who were trying to get justice and to the larger population who needed to understand this On a deeper level and we just wanted to kind of remove some of the Sensationalism from it and get to the humanity of what was going on And I think that because people believed in that you know There was so much support momentum around it that for me and my co-director Damon We just kind of had to like surrender to this process and just come and give our best to it and kind of Let it happen. I mean, you know, it was really really hard work But I definitely can't take all the credit because it took a lot of people and a lot of faith for it to come out so I was maybe 10 or 11 when I was on the prize here the first part of it and I always loved history and I I remember Sitting there and just being astounded by all this history that I didn't know Because one by ten you aren't taught a lot You know Dr. King is and then the way you're taught it is Dr. King has his dream and the dream comes true and we're kind of done with that But clearly I was I mean I was living in the segregated community I was being bused to white school So I knew that that wasn't the end and and it was remarkably affirming to see this history being told not in a Little snippet, but really in-depth and I wonder how did you guys specifically come to make This how did you come to make eyes on the prize? How did that happen? Well, I Mean it all it's all about Henry Hampton who died way too young almost 20 years ago Henry Hampton was a young African-american medical student actually interestingly enough From St. Louis. He grew up in segregated St. Louis And in 1955 he was profoundly Influenced and affected by the death of Emmett Till And the photo in Jet magazine That was the same year that he was stricken with polio actually and for the first time in his life really began to I think understand What that disability was so he sort of tucked away in the back of his mind this idea of some day Doing something about civil rights He he had a long and really interesting early career Including working for the Unitarian Church and when he was working for the church He got sent to Selma, Alabama and was in one of the marches and Selma not the big bloody Sunday March But the next one the so-called turnaround March, which was this really complicated Tactically weird March where they did the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons and retreated Anyhow, he was walking back across the Pettus Bridge Away from the troopers and he looked around and saw all these news cameras And he thought some day someone's gonna make a great story out of this And sure enough he tried about ten years later. He tried to do a big epic a 26 part epic actually about Civil rights for commercial television for ABC. Did you say 26 parts? I mean, it's 26. Wow. Yeah, 26 parts Well, he was naive That first attempt was a complete train wreck. It was a humiliating failure Partly because Henry would be the first to admit he didn't know what he was doing And also at that time this was 1978. No one had figured out How to do these big complex historical series You know it was way before Ken Burns. It was way before these PBS. It was the Easter Channel didn't exist You know the American experience didn't exist. So no one really knew how to do it. Any long story short He was determined not to give up and about four years later He he relaunched the project in the public sphere, you know with help I have to say from the Ford Foundation was their first early big funder to come in MacArthur all the our friends It had I have to shout out today it had funding from the National Endowment for the humanities significant funding and He hired me and Sam and a whole bunch of folks Who had some experience and we set off and you know over the next two years? We made first eyes one which was the six films from sort of the classic black and white In all senses of black and white Civil rights movement and then went on to do eyes to which was another what eight shows. Yeah, right And here we are I can't believe we're 30 years later We're sitting here in Brooklyn in a screening room looking at these things with a young filmmaker who's who's carrying on the work I mean, it's sort of it's astonishingly wonderful for me, frankly Do you want to add anything to that? Well, I was fortunate enough to come in on eyes to I had been editing for about 12 years And I was working on a show and I had an assistant Meredith Woods Who had worked on eyes and she suggests she had said to me that Henry was looking for a producer For eyes, too, they had lost a producer and I she gave me the number. I called up Henry I went up to Boston had an interview with Henry and signed on to be one of the producers one of the salt and pepper teams I What I mean by that is that every team of we all did two shows these salt and pepper teams There was one white producer one black producer And it was Henry's mindset to sort of create that tension which definitely did happen That actually is a great segue because my next question is exactly that and I'd like all three of you to answer I mean these films whose streets eyes on the prize are dealing with the black fight For full humanity and full citizenship in this country And I wonder how important is the race of the director and the producer when you're making a film about this this Particularly about the black struggle struggle for a full citizenship. I Would like you all answer I'll I'll dive right in there were there were very strong arguments within eyes on the prize that it would make an incredible Statement if it was an all-black production team Judy Richardson really fought for that and Henry felt Henry Hampton Felt that you know if you're gonna make these films that are about White people and black people in America that to reach a white and black audience And he was really determined that he was gonna reach a mainstream middle American Audience in Iowa. I'm sorry for those who don't know with Henry Hampton white or black. Oh, I'm so interesting Oh, wow, Henry Hampton was black. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, every Hampton when he had been an activist he had been And so he as Sam explained he felt that it was really important If you're gonna gonna work these things out in society and you're gonna work them out In films you have to work them out in the editing room also these he said we have secrets from one another We have secrets across race. We have secrets across Generations we have secrets across genders and it became known around black side as the abrasion of good minds and and he wanted he wanted people to to fight it out in the editing room, you know, sometimes it works sometimes it didn't I Think in the end it probably made eyes on the prize more accessible to a broad audience frankly His eyes in the prize as strong as it might have been had it been an all-black production team, maybe not Maybe not I would jump in and say I think you know it was Henry's vision And I even though Judy was really strong about all black teams Henry's vision was to have this kind of tension and it wouldn't be the eyes on the prize It is without that, you know, it was hard, you know, because there would be times when you know The of the co-producing teams we would have different opinions and it would get really get tough One of the things though that if you remember John one of the things that was important that we always had a discussion that when we went out to interview people Who would interview who if it was a white person should I interview that person should Sheila Bernard It was my co-producer interview that person. We always had that constant dialogue, you know And at that time if it was the white person Sheila would do it if it was a black person I would do it now quite honestly I've been to be lots of white people now from the south since then so I don't really have a problem with it But back then we had that sort of tension the constant tension and John's right. There were some teams that didn't survive That didn't survive the salt and pepper thing Yeah, I mean, I don't know if y'all want to tell any particular story. I know a little interested in the tension But I think that would be right I mean if you're looking about what it is that you were trying to do and Understanding that black and white folks live a fundamentally different lived experience in this country. There would have to be tension Even though the film was about Distinctly, I mean it was also about white America like being anti-democratic, right? And it's both of those things But is there anything that that sticks out in your your head a particular tension or a particular struggle over a particular Issue or framing in any of these? Well, it's interesting. Well two things first of all I have to say We did some interviews with an all-white crew and some interviews with an all-black crew very very seldom But occasionally we would have that discussion back in Boston and decide to have a crew that was all one race Well, it's interesting Orlando Bagwell and I Orlando's a black producer Who did two of the episodes and I was one Orlando and I were rooming together in Boston and we were both raising young sons at the time Our sons were I think about both about ten at the time and it was the thing I remember actually had did not have to do with the film but it had to do with Orlando and I talking about raising our sons and The talk that he would have with his son the talk that I would probably not have with my son There was a different talk that I would have with my son And so though that those were probably discussions that I think we might not have had had it not been that The building was this It was like this multicultural Multi-ethnic Boiling Calderon in multiculturalism. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm I mean definitely at least to me when I watched your film. I knew that this was a film made by a black person So what do you think is the role or importance of the race of the producer or the director when it comes to these films? I Think that it's really important that this film Needed to be authored and owned by black people and I think that for my co-director and I It was really important to both of us that a woman helm this film And I think that there's a certain Sensitivity that you bring as a map marginalized person because in order to survive You have to understand the distance between yourself and the other Whereas if you are not, you know marginalized in a particular way You don't necessarily have to pay attention at certain things because it doesn't you know bear on your security in different ways So I think it was important for that direction to be there and that ownership to be there But at the same time, you know my edit my editor is a wonderful white guy And he you know brought a whole lot of insight to the film and the issues that we were grappling with and he brought He brought you know a level of distance that was really really necessary because when you live through this and You know like John and like Henry. I was an activist. I came to it trying to be a part of it So I was standing shoulder-to-shoulder people with people And sometimes you don't you don't have that perspective. You just don't there were points in the process where we had to bring In a totally outside voice who was white who could just look at our footage and find Pieces of information because we literally could not tell what contextual facts were relevant because we knew this story so well So I think ultimately we are more we are better together We are better when we're working together in diverse groups and bringing our different talents and and you know strengths to the table But I think it's also really really important to acknowledge that you know and not just in storytelling But in a lot of realms it is time for black leadership It's time for the leadership of women is time for the leadership people of color because we're if we don't get that We're missing a perspective We're never gonna have the full picture without you know having that leadership and the ability when the buck stops You know somebody who is deeply vested and somebody who understands from the perspective of a black person can make that call I think that was really really important in our film. I wanted to ask you When when you guys made eyes on the prize there was some distance But you're making this film While it is happening while the movement is ongoing and what are the particular challenges to to try and to create a Film that is documenting a movement that is still happening Yeah, almost all of it was a particular challenge It you know we started out wanting to You know make We thinking we were gonna make something longer You know we did we had no idea how we were going to fully contain this story And it's actually funny because Sam a different point points in the process has kind of given us feedback on our works in progress I remember we first got ready to send you some footage. We're like, yes, so we have an assembly. It's 14 hours long And Sam emails me back and he goes what are you making a three-part series get back to me when you have an assembly and You know, but it was great motivation for us to kind of understand that we were neat We were gonna need to make some difficult choices and fast if we were gonna be able to do this You know, that's towards the end of the process, but as we were filming I think because of things like eyes on the prize We kind of had this innate awareness that the things that were happening around us had a historical value in and of themselves and so It kind of gave us permission to just explore and I think you know again Thanking the the documentary film community and the funders who supported us going out there You know, we would come back with tidbits of footage and we're like listen like there is a story here And we're working through it, you know, and they kept sending us back and we were collecting food So ultimately we had, you know, three to four hundred hours worth of footage and there are there's material that you know I think has an archival value to it and we kind of knew that as we're collecting it So, you know, like Sam said documentaries are made in the edit. So we got finally finished shooting I think the things that we knew were that this was gonna be a personal story first and foremost and that That you know the protests of the things that people already knew at least knew a little bit about Ferguson That had to be the backdrop to the story about what it's like to be a human being in the situation. We knew that We knew that it was going to be an ensemble cast We weren't trying to create any monolithic heroes and I think you know I think that's one of the great things again about eyes and the prize and the fact that you took so much time and space to tell The story is that you you get the sense that this takes a community and a village of people from all different kind of walks of lives and areas and I personally was really adamant that I wanted it to be no longer than 90 minutes now It's about an hour and 45 minutes But you know I felt like for this in this particular moment and the way that we were trying to tell the story what was going on that it Had to be Concise somehow that we had to sum it up We were never going to be able to explore all the facts of the case We've never going to be able to get into the details of Mike Brown's death if we wanted to execute this really emotional intimate story So, you know just I have to thank my editor Christopher McNally I mean just a really really brilliant and dedicated human being Navigated through you know, we researched So much archival we did really late in the process and over 25 archival sources ended up being used So he's pulling clips from Instagram clips from buying little 10-second videos and you know His ability to really create a sense of space out of these really disparate sources and kind of get to the heart of The emotion in these public moments I think you know, I'm really grateful that he came to the table with that skill set and and you know It was a really Generational process I want to comment on this. This is an extraordinary film by the way I saw it at the premiere at Sundance whose streets are streets It's just it's an amazingly profoundly moving movie And it's easy to miss that one of the giant differences Between this and eyes and the prize in the is that all the footage we had to work with with eyes and the prize was shot by White male camera guys from the networks working for networks in Los Angeles and New York I Mean there was no Individual person in Selma, Alabama from the community had a camera shooting. There were nobody was shooting home movies And one of the things that's so Energizing and moving about this film is that it's it's so clearly from inside the community and that's Partly because times have changed. It's partly because everyone has cell phones now But it's it's a totally different cinematic experience because It's it's it's it is filmed by the people about whom the film is being made. It's a totally different. Yeah absolutely Which is another great segue to my next question, which is your film is clearly it has a sense of intimacy to it There's no narrator And I feel like with eyes on the prize episode there's much more of a kind of a distance and I wonder if you guys could talk about the decisions in How you chose how you were going to tell these stories? What were some of the the decisions you made about the actual filmmaking you made a decision? You wouldn't have a narrator You wouldn't have a script that sort of thing and that's a huge part of eyes on the prize is is this voice on high That is taking you on this journey and as you said John your film is very much Intimate and I wouldn't say yours isn't intimate, but it's it's clearly a different aesthetic So if you guys could talk about those decisions and why you think they were effective for the particular films that you made In the case of eyes One of the things that was paramount in terms of us all starting this process was Henry was in John and Judith Vecchione The one word that we kept hearing all the time was you have to the sentence was you have to tell us a story What's the story and I was a story unfold and This is where after all my years of editing this is where I first heard someone say the three-part structure You know you have to you have to adhere to the three-part structure and that was always a challenge You know I have to set up the inciting incident and the conclusion The other thing that was important to the Henry basically said in John and Judith said to us that It's gotta be from the people who were there when you look for your interviews. They have to tell us a story You know and so that was another challenge and then the other to the third challenge was to be able to say Which really was very important from a journalistic perspective. You had to be accurate You had to make sure all your facts checked out You couldn't just say something because you felt you felt it you had to after we got to our cuts our final cuts We were going to a room with John and Judith Vecchione and the other advisors and Henry and our producing team And we would go through every sentence of narration every interview And that we would have to have a Bible to fact check everything we said if it wasn't fact check It wasn't going to get in the show, you know and the importance of Julian to this to the series In my opinion was to be able to He I don't think him is the voice of God I think of him as someone who had been a part of the movement who said I'm gonna help Set the stage and sit let you this story unfold, you know That's what his responsibility was but it was our responsibility to write that stuff and rewrite it and rewrite and rewrite it So it felt right. It was always about that's why I really understood journalistic integrity and from making eyes on the prize Well, we were I think I think I'm speaking for Sam and myself and a whole bunch of others I think Given our own Ways of doing things all of us would have made much more bold films for eyes on the prize I mean, it's very very spare. It's it's narration interviews with people who were there archive footage and songs from the time That's it. Okay. It's very very spare. I mean, we would have gone crazy We would have done a million we may have made it more like whose streets right if we could have but This was 1985 and there were there was there had never been a series about civil rights So we were starting from scratch and we were aiming very very high for the breadth of our audience Henry was really determined that 50 million Americans would see this which in fact happened and they'd be white and they'd be black and the people who Most of many of them most of them probably never heard of Emmett Hill So there was all this historical baggage this background It's like doing the first film about Elvis Presley or the first film about you know You name it you got to get all this baggage out of the way and and I hope Paved the way so you don't have to do all that when you do those films now So that partly accounts for why it's you know, it's kind of clunky now It looks like old-fashioned it is old-fashioned filmmaking But that and John is absolutely right because I had come out of making documentaries that were no narration that were Really direct cinema You know where we would shape it with just the footage that was shot and the people that we had interviewed And there was nobody there was no no Julian Bond. So my first I Completely in sync with John to me. I could we making these kind of films for this is like old-fashioned stuff But this was Henry's he wanted to make sure he got an audience to pay attention You know and for me as a first-time producer it was a big challenge to go here to these rules You know, I was chopping at the bit all the time Yeah, I would just echo that I mean I think films like I was in the prize and I think specifically eyes on the prize You know laid a foundation for us and the question that we had to grapple with was okay You know, this is the same story. This is a story where you know how it ends before it even starts And so how do you? Kind of make something new what has not been done So I think because Henry approached it the way he did because you all took those steps And because you all had that kind of rigor with the facts It opened up a space for us to do something emotional for us to add another element I think that the process of kind of humanizing black people and humanizing our experience in this country has been Our projects since we were brought to this country And so I think you you should look at these films as an evolution of that attempt to engage with white America to engage with the popular imagination and to you know, kind of fully lay claim to our humanity in all the different ways I think that you know, we think of This movement as a as a human rights movement We think of it as an advancement of civil rights to say that no now It's actually time for full recognition of our humanity and all the ways that that means So yeah, just and you know again have to thank you all for the work that you did and for really setting the stage and and teaching and giving us a kind of arena To plan and learn from and bounce off and think okay. Do we want to do it like this? Do we not want to do it like this, you know having that foundation there was really important Well, you know that now we learn from you, right? It's true I mean, I think that tension is always so interesting because And as a writer who also writes about I call my beat the segregation beat I write about our racial inequality particularly With black children is you are trying to craft something that you hope will prod people to do the right thing But you're also trying to be true to that story and for me and I imagine for you the outrage that you feel about this injustice That you're chronicling so I wonder Subah and John you both came out of activism and Do all of you believe that all documentaries are political is the first part of the question are all documentaries political And what is the role of documentary in social change? Yeah, I think I think that all art is political I think if you're making a documentary that's not political then you're just taking the political stance of neutrality But I think you know, it's still political whether you like it or not. I'm gonna steal that one Yeah, I mean everything is political, I don't think there's anything we do in our waking lives That's not political. We may not we may not identify it as such now Are all documentaries films of advocacy? That's a different question And I don't think that every documentary has to be a film of advocacy In fact, I've been I've been troubled in the last ten years when we started to have all these metrics for From funders about you know when you do a documentary Can you point to how many clicks are on the website to support that NGO? I think that that limits what we do I think there are some documentaries that are not there Should be plenty of documentaries that are not overt advocacy I'll I have to follow up also with what Sam said that it was a black side that I learned that You have to be factual. I mean you have to if the Henry used to say if the film's gonna get attacked Let's have it attacked for the right reasons not because you stole a close-up from some meeting and put it in a meeting A hundred miles away on a different day. Let's just don't do that And I've carried that with me and that's sometimes hard because it sometimes Results and what do they call it testimony against interest, you know Sometimes it makes your guys your eyes don't look so great, but you know so be it I am on the same page as a lot all artists political as far as I'm concerned I mean as soon as you shape something soon as you say something you're making a political stance The thing is if you are aware of it, you know as a as a as a young editor when I first started in the business I Said to Anybody who could hear me when I was 23 24. I said I don't want to make any political films I don't want to make any films associated with black people. I want to make films just about people You know, well that was a political stance and then I was very fortunate about five years later to meet a filmmaker a name St. Clair born wonderful documentary And Saint made me understand that all art is political and from that point on that was that's my mantra And I would just add for the second part of your question You know, what is the importance of documentary? I think spaces like this really demonstrate that and I think one of the things that we thought about as we are creating Who streets is we did one at the actual core release I really wanted for this film to be exposed on the level of mainstream media communication because that is how Kind of the alternative story was you know Alternative facts were presented and it seemed like to set the record straight that it needed to go to that level And I also just think you know with film I think a lot of the magic of it comes when you get to enjoy it in a room with a bunch of other people and you Can feel the palpable energy and you laugh together and you cry together and you you know gasp and all of that I think documentary You know, I think that again the work that you all have done the groundwork you have laid with this medium Or it's particularly with eyes on the prize and you know civil rights films that were extremely rigorous and breaking down and laying out You know, it's all there. I think it gives filmmakers now License to really create documentaries that are experiences that can open people's eyes and you know I think of it as one of the few ways that we actually have to kind of combat segregation because segregation never really really stopped and I think these are some of the few moments when we actually Come face-to-face with one another So I think that's that for me would be the importance of documentary to activism great, so I think we have a few minutes for Question and answers so there's a microphone on both sides of the room if anyone has any questions. They'd like to ask Hey, Barbara Hey, Nicole. Hi Thanks for this has been really interesting and I just want to actually make two observations for comment by anybody who might wish to One is that I I've seen this I saw eyes on the prize originally and it's nice to see it again But one of the things that I was really struck by and I think it follows up on Something you guys were talking about with respect to all the different ways that people now have cameras and they document things in real time but Given where we are right now where we're just that has had tremendous power in our culture I was stunned to realize that When those camera people were there I want to say camera men because they probably work men from the big networks with those network logos on their cameras Law enforcement is it's not that they're not aware. They're there. They're all over the place We can see them and seem to not understand that What they were doing The power of the visual that was being captured as they were doing it. I was just very struck by how I Don't know if I don't I want to say oblivious they were to it But they couldn't have been oblivious to the cameras, but they were absolutely oblivious to what the impact of that Could potentially be so that was just one observation. I wanted to make and then the second thing I wanted to say is um, I Really appreciate this series because in the fall of 1964 I was starting kindergarten at a school that no longer exists It was kind of an alternative school called the Walden school on West 88th Street And I think it was the first day of kindergarten the whole school. We had an assembly and we learned about the killings in Mississippi in 1964 because Andy Goodman had graduated from Walden and The community was a very the Walden community was a very tight community And so I think this is what we did on the first day of I was five years old And I remember this distinctly and then we all went outside and all of us kids Helped to plant what is still there. It is still there on 88th and Central Park West a tree called the Andrew Goodman tree And it's got a little plaque and if you walk by 88th Street, and you just turn the corner You'll see it and it wasn't until So I always knew this story about Andy Goodman, but it wasn't until I really I saw this series that I really had a much bigger understanding of like freedom summer and And What this little story that had a big impact on me as a little kid like what the bigger thing was So I know neither of those were questions, but I just wanted to pass those two things along There any other questions from the audience if not I have Do you want to go to the microphone? I have a question for Sam Would you mind talking a little bit more about the process of Henry Hampton because he at the root of all this You say tell the story and I remember that he Always pushed people push you and other producers push the envelope you if you come up with a concept He had an instinct. It was not the most as I remember articulate person in the room But he has an instinct to turn down All the solutions you came up with and you will you it was a quasi almost right in the end and The language that looks old-fashioned. I think it's not it's lesser a white language than the PBS language That was prevalent like middle of the road You had to be middle of the road show both sides Which is all the time. Yeah, I gotta say to you that You're right. We were presenting with different approaches and concepts and he would shoot them down and she learned I would and the other produces Jackie and Louie, you know We would get frustrated and the first thing we would do in all lines. We go call John Who said John we need help? We did it all the time because we were always like Dizzy because we said where are we going because we would pitch and pitch and pitch and Henry would just like She this down and I say John we need help For those of you who are filmmakers next time you're in a production meeting you just can't figure out what what's going on Remember this that I would vary I lived in California. I was commuting from California And I would very often get phone calls from a producer who had just been in a meeting with Henry Hampton I was 3,000 miles away and the producer would say what did Henry mean in that meeting and I would say I have no idea, you know, I wasn't there and then Five minutes later. I'd get on the call from another producer who'd been in the same meeting and say what did Henry mean? So it was my job to try to then I have to call Henry figure out what he meant and I called the producers back So I was kind of the translator, you know, but these You know You know, he had a vision, you know, I always say this I always say this I'm very honest Henry to me wasn't a filmmaker he was a visionary and He was a visionary that sometimes didn't quite know how to articulate the vision to us But if you stayed at the table long enough and you went to the vacuum and John You would it would come around because I have to say that as a first-time producer Coming from it as an editor. I thought I knew everything. I thought I knew better than any producer You know, but I learned the valuable lesson that Just because I was editing all this footage didn't mean I knew how to be a producer And that's one of the most invaluable things I learned from that eyes on the prize experience how to be a producer Okay That we seeing some of eyes on the prize right now is so important because None of us have talked about the elephant in the room, but what just happened with that election seeing Where we came from in that detail, especially about the hatreds and the racism and the sexism of our country It's important because I was blindsided. I'm not gonna pretend I was by what happened, but in Context, you know, when you start seeing it, you realize no this this unfortunately it is who we are and We're trying to be better and sometimes it goes back and forth and I think we're in the back But it at least gives a context. It's so important to be able to understand what happened so what's what's so interesting about that and and You're making your film under President Obama, right? And I think what was important to remember is yes an election It was a manifestation of clearly the tensions and the bigotry that already existed And so yeah, I guess as a wrap-up question I would be interested to know what what does that felt like because I feel I get that a lot with my work, too Where people are like, oh my god, what's gonna happen under Trump? And I'm like I've been writing about really bad stuff for eight years of the Obama administration and clearly it can get worse but It's almost like we we want to be let off the hook by saying that the election of Trump was not who we are And so we have to ignore What was happening when you were making a film just a couple years ago? right You know having the first black president. I remember when Obama was elected and I had Just I missed the cutoff to vote in his first election by a couple of months But you know there was just this overwhelming feeling I was back home in LA at the time and everybody had just come out onto the Streets and we're honking and crying and just you know, they felt like we had won this amazing victory We have finally had a black person, you know in the White House not the help and You know and so I take that victory because that is amazing and to have him and to have Michelle I think really it's about Michelle. Let's be honest You know but to have those figures it means something to us, you know And it is an honor to have that office and to to run this country But at the same time, you know across the board a lot of the things that happened under his Administration were the worst of the things that have been happening under president after president as far as you know The drone policies overseas as far as You know what was happening in Ferguson in st. Louis and the lack of intervention there and so I have always been Critical and I think it is important to constantly be critical of whoever is in office, you know We should respect and honor you are leaders But at the same time it doesn't serve anyone to not be critical of them Just because maybe we like them or they make us feel good that they're that they're there and so Yeah, I think it's really really important to look at the situation We find ourselves in now as a culmination of all of these different, you know Politics and things that have been happening. I don't see it as us going backwards I see it as more of an eruption of a building energy You know and it gets really complicated where all those things come from but I think that overall I would say this isn't I Don't know they're like we were saying, you know back in the room They're do there does feel like there are things happening that are unprecedented But there are also things happening that have been happening that we're just starting to look at Did you want to add something Sam? Yeah to me what's happening? It's historical precedent about precedent about what America is. I mean you think back historically go back to Civil war slaves are freed reconstruction. Wow great things bang Reconstructions over Jim Crow. This is just a cycle. This is America, you know And the challenge for us is documentary filmmakers or to do films to be involved in documentaries that challenge this Constantly challenge this, you know because this to me is America I mean the power of these to these films together eyes on the prize and who streets as you see how Cicular at all is you see the you see the police standing off against peaceful protesters in Selma and Birmingham And then you see that happening again in Ferguson, and I think that is where I mean civil rights movements I always understand it is the ability for film to bear witness and to expose what in a segregated society White Americans don't have to see what you were seeing right in all of these places Without film beaming this into people's homes or bring it into theaters has allowed many Americans to ignore the reality on the ground I think you guys have all done that so powerfully Is it time to wrap up? Okay, so I think what time are they screening? Who streets is next? Okay, I thought they were filming Sorry in theaters this summer. It's gonna be distributed by Magnolia pictures Actually, if you go to see I am not your Negro next weekend starting next weekend. You can catch a little teaser of who streets and We'll be at different festivals. I think we'll be back here back in Brooklyn at BAM in a couple of months So and I'm just gonna say I just had a show come on Monday. I'm PBS called the talk You can stream it at PBS.org I don't know anything to you can buy it out the lobby Yes, I'll sign it So thank you all for it's been an honor to be on the stage with all three of you And the work that you guys are doing and have done so powerful. So if we could show our appreciation. Thank you