 Hello, my name is Rajni Eddins and we're here today with the recipient of the Vermont Outstanding Filmmaker Award the first of its kind outstanding filmmaker Charles Burnett So pleased to be here with you this morning. Thank you. It's a pleasure being here. Yes It was a blessing to hear you share some of your experiences in terms of coming into the field And I and I'm I'm definitely thankful the opportunity to hold space and unpack more of your journey And because I think it lends the opportunity to inspire Youth who are interested in filmmaking and people who are exploring the idea of how they can create their own narrative through this medium So what got you into filmmaking proper? It's strange because it wasn't something that was common in the neighborhood, you know In fact, it was rare and the opportunity to either talk to someone except for like music being me Like a musician or something like that or one or two few actors that manages managed to benefit from Being in the community, but basically it was nonexistence. It was more I mean people who knew about being a lawyer or doctor or something like that But filmmaking I had the hi the fact that I was I was interested in People in neighborhood because they say are you crazy, you know, what position can you it doesn't exist, you know, unless you're tap dance or Making jokes or something like that, but being someone who was a technician or director because even though they had a history of black filmmakers and there's a there's an exhibit that's going on now at the Academy of motion pictures and the new museum that they're having it they have in in Los Angeles Where you find that people of color has been have been in filmmaking since since 1897 Wow, you know, and it was a shock to me because the only person I knew about was starting a film a black filmmaker or a group Was the was Oscar Michelle right in 1915 or something like that he started With the homestead and so forth But we never I mean all the other part of history was missing like Oscar Michelle and Spencer Williams and all those people, you know It's not taught in school. It wasn't until I got DCLA and weighing the filmmaking that I learned about Oscar Michelle You know, and I thought if that would have been In my conscience earlier, it made me a probably different filmmaker because if you looked at his films This films were really relevant to the black experience more so than any other filmmakers sense in many ways And and so that was sort of kept away from us, you know in many ways We didn't know anything about You know Frederick Douglass and history of black you know, Ida B. Wells and on and on Those things were taught and so it wasn't up to black history month or something like that We're all of a sudden we became aware and and university start picking up that there was this history that we need to talk about It was forced upon them by you know Progressive black people who said no we need to have these things in our in our schools in particular and And in high schools and things like that where people can benefit from knowing that you know We were a part of making of this country, you know And so when we got DCLA the object was because we're there the civil rights movement in that period That this is what we ought to be doing. We ought to be exposing young kids in the community to our history, you know Definitely, that's so valuable and that strikes a chord with me because I'm seeing these elements in my daughter We're her and her her peer a comrade are Aware of Ida B. Wells and they're putting these names of these greats in their poetry and that connection to their history is really having a Self-actualizing process in terms of stimulating their consciousness as young black women and it's just interesting to see how Nourishing that element of positive self-affirmation learning about your role historically and even about Certainly pushing forth a certain narrative can be the Determiner in terms of how you develop as a person and as an artist. I had the interesting kids met based Connection to meet the extended family of Melvin van Peebles recently too was we showed a film on his life called How to eat watermelon in the company white people and still enjoy So I'm aware of his knowledge and experience too about the necessity for us to have more of a agency autonomy-based sovereignty over in our own narratives Were you up peers with Melvin or did you have some relationship in that? Yeah, it was it? I remember when he first this film he did When he's in France, he did His first short film he did in France didn't he went on to do Sweetback And I was a DC at the time he brought the film there, you know, and It was a really a Revolutionary kind of experience because before that it was like films that made by Hollywood You know, it's all in my stories and and Melvin my people made the main character a black person a hero character that Accomplished what he wanted to do and I and and and you know Became this black hero and so that was a novelty to talk about, you know Black black heroes as a main feature of a film before that was like, you know I cabled in the sky and all these other things, you know And and and then a raisin the Sun which they made into a film with it said Portier but but here was the one where he was a film where The main character was a black person who resisted the establishment, you know And in white dominance and so forth and he came out not a loser, but a winner, right? And so that was it created a lot of discussion when we're in films ago. I mean it was like oh Keep on running feet. Yeah It was a wonderful to have that kind of discussion for the first time in many But there have been a few black films that made a Hollywood who did Try to treat the subject matter more realistically some extent, but it was very rare, you know So when Marilyn my people came along with his sweet back badass song It was a totally different experience And you know, they had there was a wonderful films like like nothing but a man that Ivan Dixon did, you know Which is today still a powerful film, you know In fact, I was Julius Harris, Julius Harris, Julius Harris who played the main character in there with Ivan Dixon and and Abby Lincoln was Julius Harris was a person I wanted to make I wanted to work with on the film So I wrote when I did sleep with anger He was a person I thought of when I wanted the character a hairy hairy man And but it had been years and years since we made the film and and we needed someone that had some clout because that's you know like Danny Glover who made it possible to make the film because they had a name and the Hollywood was interested in and You know exploiting people with names, you know and it's exploited in a good way, you know And utilizing their renown their platform Yeah, and so because with him attached to the film it became possible for the studios to get interested and put money behind it But it took that and unfortunately because of that way of looking at producing Needing a name a lot of really talented actors didn't get the opportunity to sort of sort of perform or Be the main character in a film when we were Looking for a cast for sleep with anger. We'd invited everybody and all the black players who? Was working from day one came in and they were so great and then and the reading I Mean that they were like really powerful and then you Asked this really dumb question like why weren't you making why weren't you why why haven't we seen you before and the answer was obvious They don't get the opportunity these people were in the 70s and 80s and things like that and you said well the world really missed All this talent all this talent and these people could have made a living off of it and produced more films and so forth but it was limited and you see the the Effect of segregation the effect of racism and all that sort of thing how it you know destroys lives and things like that and and The benefit that these people could have given not only the young people would growing up But you know America is how they they could have seen that there were Stories about we mentioned Frederick Douglass had to be well that you name it You know that you could have learned from that it would have benefited me when I was going to school To know about these people all these unknown personages that reminds me of an interview I saw with Paul Robeson and I think it was an Australian cohort of press and he was saying He was speaking on how the second-class citizenship treatment of black people is Causing America to be robbed of so much Brilliance so much natural and inherent genius And I agree with that I think we need the opportunity to have ourselves reflective in Our own consciousness in positive ways to know that there's a history and a trajectory for our Inherent genius throughout the history of human family and civilization And I see that in you I see that in Melvin Folks who are bringing the community to the larger screen to enable us to see ourselves through our own eyes Was that something that was always important to you from the onset when you began your journey as a filmmaker? Well, yes you know, I came to it I came up and film and During the civil rights movement knew the conflict between Martin Luther King well not a conflict But you know the difference between under the King and Malcolm X, you know, we had those choices, you know and and and and so it was it wasn't until the end that I began to really take Education very seriously because before that we didn't exist, you know It was it was this notion that we couldn't do anything. We couldn't achieve anything One because there wasn't examples other than George Washington Carver and people like that you know about the peanut That's far as we got and there were more things in that, you know Not only Frederick Douglass with all these people that were in and forgotten heroes, you know that contributed largely to our independence by circling for, you know Trying to get an independence and awareness of the fact that we we came from a Country Africa where we had civilizations Continent the whole continent. Yes, and I remember and I was going to elementary school or junior high whatever it was and the teacher said, you know Egyptians can't draw Yeah, they just discarded anything the Egyptians did, you know, oh my goodness, and so I took that as truth You know didn't know anything about you know, and then when I went to Egypt It was astounding when you see the pyramid you see it in Luxor. They spilled all that Oh, it was I was shocked And I can argue for all this stuff that that existed In Egypt, you know some of the if you look at the architect of buildings and you said you could go to Karnak, you know Luxor and look at the Sculpture the monuments and you said in fact that was a little Producer when we went down to Karnak, you know, and he was stunned. He said people couldn't do this It took space people who did this, you know, he couldn't accept the fact that And it was obvious that you know the To this day, they just began to speculate on how they built the pyramids And they was like no humans can't do that and these are Africans, you know did that, you know, and you go down to to other Nubian culture and stuff like that and how they had their pyramids and on and on and And how they discovered that there was this other planet out there and And You know where They kind of said how they saw that there was a serious B because they were aware of the Dogan tribe Had knowledge of these planets even before Europeans had the technology. Yeah, even for the heads you know What do you call it the telescopes? Yeah, and and this is a mystery why this sort of thing exists And they don't want to say that well, there was culture. There was a culture. There was a history there There was people with this Technology that we can't explain today. You know, it's foundational to all human family Yes, and I know if I would have known that when I was going to elementary school or high school Whatever it is. I've been a different person, you know, it would have been motivated to Do something, you know You know, I'll take part in it more and more readily because I know that there's but there's a history there and there's a continuity And that I have I should observe, you know, and out of it and motivated sort of for coming up with being brainwashed And say we can't do anything, right, you know, and I look at young people and you say look You know, you have a history here, you know and And you need to be aware of it because that'll make you a different person I mean, I mean you can look back and see where what is the drugs come from where all this stuff and having a person with self-esteem Living in a community where you say I can do anything, you know and Become anything because you're telling me Whatever I do didn't mean anything have any meaning and the answer. There's people who? who fought for Expose, you know the fact that as people coming together they can do Remarkable things and I mean when we look at if you study history look at reconstruction the period of reconstruction You know what we accomplish as groups working together when they had the unions that were integrated even a short span of time We had opportunity to ascend to positions of power to advocate not just for ourselves as black people Advocate for poor whites and advocate for shifts in politics that would allow for greater freedom and equity Those are some really positive things But your courts when Andrew Johnson was became president after being become vice president under if I'm Lincoln destroyed every you know Just that whole concept of a forming of a union, you know, we're different groups and you had you know Woodrow Wilson who It was probably one of the questionable worst Presidents we had you know fired when he got to be president and What in 1915 or whatever the year was when he became president he fired all the black postman and and Washington DC You know and after he had promised You know people of color that he was gonna be this exceptional person and then he turned us back on everyone So but we have to understand where we come from and where we can go You know and and that was a that was a point of being a filmmaker And and in the 60s and 70s that we were obligated and should have been Trying to address these problems and bring film making to the community and that that's what our purpose was You know to have film as the means of social change, you know beautiful Yeah, because that was a that was a part of our makeup coming up in the 60s You know being part of the civil rights movement and so forth was the fact that we had this notion that that we were gonna Change things that it was our responsibility people who had a bit of an education to sort of like Reflect on the past and try to make a difference, you know because it seems to me as an artist and that particularly and with the power of imagery you have a vital role responsibility and Potential to influence the minds of our people and people at large on a grand scale To really inject us into the collective imaginary in a way that maybe historically We hadn't been seen or had the opportunity to be seen through our own eyes and what would you? encourage budding and burgeoning filmmakers youth filmmakers filmmakers of global majority of African descent To do now with that role and responsibility of being able to hold a lens to the world and create narratives Well, there's so many great stories that we've Talked about and written about and experience that we need to expose younger kids People to our history because that would make a very difference. Just understanding that that you know I have I have created I've come from a civilization had mathematics and and all sorts of things that this you know Coming to America didn't we had that long before this country existed, you know things like that and that would help People get self-esteem, you know, which you really need instead of having you know Like I mentioned earlier that when I went to high school. It was nothing mentioned about our accomplishments of who we are as people You know and and so a young person who? Doesn't allow this this notion that we we come from nothing brainwash them, you know And they feel confident they can do anything, you know achieve and it's not it it it it affects him in his specs Reflects this whole country how they missed out on geniuses and people who given the opportunity would have accomplished so much right that would benefit Humanity as a whole never got the opportunity Opportunity and and because that everyone suffered because if you if you if you limit You know people's capacity to do things accomplished and we could have medicines and science and all this other thing We can't have been a part of creating, you know, and instead it's it's like They keep you down. It kept the whole country down I feel like that's a painful reality of racism where white Children are robbed as much as black children of their own humanity because when they're taught to underestimate the potential of black people They lose the sense of themselves and acknowledgement and recognition that we all have greater potential and it robs It's the opportunity to be able to unify in meaningful impactful ways to be able to co-create a society sorry, I don't worry and and a Community of healthy and positive relationship that has mutual respect as it's as it's core and cornerstone of course Black children when they are mistocked that we have no history like John Henry Clark was told by his Neighbor you have no history, which is interesting because history starts with black people But that has the role of inferiorizing Black people people global majority, but it has the role also falsely Superiorizing white children and then robbing them of the understanding that we have a capacity to co-create brilliance together What are some of the things you would encourage? Filmmakers creatives to speak to in terms of helping to transform that consciousness Well, it's a good it's a good question because what we're going through now in this country is this criticism of critical race theory this whole thing of Erasing the past you know and not talk about slavery and if you can't I mean I was in I was in Japan and Tokyo and Making this film with that. So Kim Gibson about Korean comfort women and how in Japan we were talking with these professors University teachers who are in denial about how the war started you know and a lot of students there don't understand that that that Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the war start and declared war And they thought that student this thought that they couldn't understand why America attacked and dropped the atomic bomb, you know and and so they're getting a The false idea of Responsibility and their role and the whole And though China conflict, you know, and the fact that they could commit it so many crimes Just like the Germans in many ways and so that's was it totally erased from their understanding of what happened And we're becoming you know hiding history and in the role if you there's So many books that We should be focusing on you know about you know lynchings and things like that, you know We're out of it was responsible to the red red brain. Yeah, thanks. And there's this lady now who wrote this book about lynchings and so forth. It's a hard it's a hard book to take You know in any way because I remember when I was coming up and and Emmett Till was killed And I remember looking at jet magazine and that just in an amazing way Destroyed I mean I grew up then It was I was no longer innocent at that point, you know I can see what people could do and you know it was all in jet magazine and showing the body and everything and I marked that day as when I Was no longer had these sort of like notions about This country and it's like now. This is a real world You know I was born in Mississippi and so I was aware of a lot of things, you know Even though I was aware I was still affected by because I remember going to New Orleans and being Miss Vicksburg Vicksburg was a city but going to New Orleans on this integrated training and stopping in New Orleans and Went into this playroom and was kicked out of there because I wasn't you know, I was a black person and And it took me it was before Rosa Parks and things like that. And so It took me years To get over that experience, you know, and it wasn't until just recently that I was able to go back to New Orleans Without having this the stressful kind of a relationship with it and it's traumatizing Yeah, and it stays with you forever in it for a long time. It wasn't until just recently a couple years ago I was able to go back and feel relatively comfortable without remembering the past and so People don't know how how affect how effective that is to be denied, you know existence and and your Being and everything Yeah, it has a debilitating role on your sense of your own freedom and freedom of movement I know I saw that with a Recent documentary on the life of Sydney Poitier when he came from the island of his family He wasn't familiar with Jim Crow mistreatment of black people in Florida And then when he when he came to deliver a package and the white woman told him to go to the back He didn't understand so he just left the package in the front steps and then when he came home later that evening his family related to What did you do the Klan was here because there's such a notion of the kind of terminal insecurity of white people that they were rapacious about safeguarding any thing they could to Bring that message of inferiority home to black people I think because I come from other who was a panther and who always spoke Love and light and the importance of having confidence and recognition of our true role in not only America But in human society and human history that we should hold our heads high that we should know we come from great people People who are civilizers were cultivators who started All things that human beings do as the progenitors before there was even a European in existence So I think those particular things are important for children to know for black children in particular to know For their own well-being and sound mental health and positive self image But also for all children to know for honest appreciation of human history and knowing about who we are as a human family do you Think there are ways that film can arrive in that space through documentary and through Popular cinema that can touch that part of the mind and bring home that story Oh, yeah, like film is a powerful image, you know, we think of terms of images, you know and and drama and to provide history through film and drama as a Very important impact on who we are because we you know gravity toward images, you know, they explain the universe and everything for us You know, I came up when people were telling folk tales and things like that and that is all history You know, and they explain the world through images and things like that and because I used to think for Mississippi We were great storytellers from from Vicksburg and I remember Someone was saying that you can tell a person from from from Vicksburg. He said, how do you do that? Because one leg is shorter than the other because Vicksburg had so many hills that people had to walk In a strange way that one leg grew up the other so but in following that they said well One of the things about people from Vicksburg was either great stories are all liars I remember having I took that as an offense in a certain way, you know beat from Vicksburg But not really by group in Los Angeles tall tales. Yeah, but but I enjoyed them, you know, and and one of the things that I made The sleep of the anger was about the lack of of being Aware of your history and trying to you know escape from it because I remember Remember kids growing up already anyone from all Los Angeles was born. We were born in Los Angeles You know, we fought when you saw someone knew someone was born in Los Angeles I way from Mars something like that because either from the South because everyone in my neighborhood was these for Arkansas Mississippi, Louisiana all transplants. Yeah, and when you find someone who is from here born here. It's like, oh Really Actually on this side, you know, yeah, so that was a novelty but the fact of the fact that we were all sort of like forced into this short this small area as a Ghetto and You know, I've seen it wasn't telling what this to South Africa and Johannesburg and and seeing Soweto That I knew what a ghetto was I mean, like you think it like few blocks like in Harlem or Brooklyn, whatever it is In Los Angeles and things like that But when you see a ghetto that's the whole country is a ghetto like in in Johannesburg and Soweto where you drive up and there's this The horizon is nothing but this brown smoke over here And then you see get closer from the from one end to the horizon the other There's these little the shanties that have because of ten roofs that reflected this Reflective thing and it's and it just was Surprising and shocking to see the whole country of black silk population house in this, you know isn't Soweto Alexandria and you know and and in the other part of South Africa It was it was amazing and that just changed everything you said no LA was like a little one or two Streets about a couple of miles, you know Square miles whatever it is, but when you see Soweto you see more intense like widespread fashion It's just It's incredible to it's like when you drive and you take the train in from the south into New, New York, and you're going through What New Jersey and you look across the Hudson whatever you see The skyline of Manhattan is like Jesus Christ is like one enter the other like a whole world part of New York and you just surprised by the Hugeness of it. Yeah, and that's the way Soweto was it was like wow, I never I wouldn't be called anything in the country I Get on anymore. Yeah, you look more you look across the world. You see all these intensive degrees of poverty Oh, you know and like our part certainly our poverty here in the US is not on par with poverty in other places in the world Where people are more abject. Oh, yeah, but now it's I mean you see homeless babies kids in the streets Families and then like taking a whole city blocks park, you know bus stops and having all their all their Utilities and everything furniture and clothing out on the street It's a man. I mean you didn't see that in Los Angeles at one point and anywhere, right? It's been increasing so dramatically and the that is that intensifying in terms of the the harmful ways that people are being discarded as Homeless people as people of global majority as black people as women the the Cavalier lack of compassion in the world that is so rampant. Do you believe that? Film and art has a role in transforming that dynamic. Oh, it does. I mean I remember I remember seeing you know Films that were done by Ozu and Kurosawa things like that about the Japanese community and their existence and a lot of documentaries that yours evens it and About people and when you see Films that like for example when I first saw a Japanese film made by a Japanese person It's just a whole different world. It's like these people exist and you see all this propaganda films that were made after the war about you know the Japanese people stereotypes. Yeah, and just or Native America. There wasn't until I was sitting next to an indigenous person in a theater That was showing the searchers That I looked at the searchers like like I guess people look at Birth of a Nation like oh, it doesn't affect me, but I remember You know, you're aware of the distortions of birth of a nation but I was certainly unaware of of John Wayne's contribution to racism in terms of searchers and fighting the Native Americans and things like that and I was as I mentioned I was sitting in the theater with this young lady who was From the first nation so to speak and So we were sitting by and when the searchers came on it was a particular scene that she just jumped up and Ran out of the theater and so I followed her out and said what's wrong? They said well, didn't you see that how they treated this Native American lady that was in the movie I saw it, but I wasn't You know Aware of the consequence of it, you know its implication until she told me and you know shouting that this is the most racist film She and then you read about John Wayne's and his Comments about Black people and native and people of color and I said yeah, I can see it now You know and so we need people to address those problems of fact check and say no This is the problem has real serious implications of who we are as people as Americans and how we treat other people foreign people, you know and So we need voices to make us aware of like you're not supposed to be cheering for necessarily the You know like Tarzan or Custer and people like that, you know We need to examine that look at it realistically and then talk about we built this good No, this country existed long before we got here, you know and and people were there too And so there was a culture of Nations and stuff like that and so people need to be and now they're trying to eviscerate that and and and and take that history Even more so now that you don't understand where we want angels here Or you know, we were like people who destroyed a lot of the people are here in culture and so forth, you know And so we need that in order to move forward and we need to understand where we came from everybody Yeah, that the reckoning has to come full circle. Yeah, I want to thank you for your time because I know we have to close Soon maybe I'll ask you one final question that was kind of offering to the folks who are perhaps having some Chepidation our self-doubt about getting into their own creativity around sharing their narrative as filmmakers I'm reaching out to the the youth now of all different backgrounds who may have an interest or an inkling in terms of wanting to explore their creativity and Expand their courageous narrative. What would you say to them who are kind of on the fence but had some interest in expanding that possibility for themselves Excuse me, I would say to be objective Read as much as you can about your history and identify with these folks You know that came before you and you have to honor them because you know, I'm you know I have claustrophobic. I'm claustrophobic and I look at these pictures of these People on slave ships how they were packed together. I couldn't survive that, you know, because I was you know You know, I've been the one who had jumped over in the middle passes in the water Forget about that. So I owe a debt to these people because it wasn't for them suffering from that and enduring it I wouldn't be here today because I know a claustrophobic Phobia is you know, so I so whenever and there's a lot of great stories Then we have to explore and talk about that we need to share with the rest of the world and particularly the people in This country and human beings that that sacrifice make great sacrifices, you know and do it a lot, you know Because I I couldn't have suffered through that it would have been a different whole story It wouldn't have been like I'm sorry, but you know, I'm not I'm not a violent person I don't believe in capital punishment, but I wouldn't turn my cheek, right, you know, I just you know I don't owe you that right, you know, I have kids and I have to protect them, you know, and so I would my being You know Yeah, not a violent person but one who say you have no right to take away from me You know my kids and their future. Yeah, I will not allow myself to be dehumanized by you know my family Yeah, and be in the lynching stuff like no that would have ended right there So I mean I would say read as much as you can be aware of your history and Be in sympathetic with Those people were who gave you life, you know And fought the hard fighting of the battle and made it possible for you to be here today beautiful Thank you so much for this powerful interval interview charge I appreciate your contribution to cinema and encourage all the folks who are watching out there to take it upon them Ourselves to explore this man's voluminous work and to be inspired and encouraged and creating your own narrative Because art and and film as he has said has such a powerful role in shifting consciousness So thank you for your time today. Thank you for having me. Thank you