 I would like to introduce legendary filmmaker, actor, director, black icon, Mr. Bill Duke. So I think that the film is so powerful and so moving on so many different levels. I had a couple of questions that I wanted to open up with before we field several questions from the audience. And I think the first question that I had was how did your collaborative relationship with your co-director start and how did you, had you had other projects with him in the past? No, I had no other projects with him. This is an idea I've had for a while and when Chan heard about it, he said I want to be a part of it. And so we both put our resources together and came up with this film. So I'm grateful to him and the people who are in the film that he brought and also his creative input. So when you started the writing process or the thought processes behind this film, was it you both had ideas of how to make this work, like how did that all play out? Well collaborations are always collaborations. But it was originally my vision and my idea based upon a number of things I've gone through in my life and the dark-skinned man and also seeing what friends of mine, children have gone through and friends of mine have gone through. So I wanted to give a voice to the voiceless, so to speak. And so films can create dialogue and sometimes in dialogue there's healing. That was our hope that this would do that. And I think there's really been a lot of positive dialogue about this film. One of the things that really struck me when viewing this film is how few documentaries exist to really look at the issue of colorism or that deals with the plight of things that darker-skinned women encounter as they're coming to age, mainly within the black community here in the United States, but really anywhere. So I thought that was really powerful and in the advent of the internet you have a whole different level of conversation that goes on where people can view the film and they can have online discussions about the film. So I thought that was really powerful as well. When the film first came out, I know you had a whole social media strategy for publicizing and marketing your event and maybe you can talk a little bit about that briefly. What we knew was a global issue and so what we did was we had a team of some great people really presenting the trailer of the idea on global platforms with social media, etc. And we had over I think 1.2 million responses globally and as a result we knew that this was an issue that was worth addressing and dealing with. And so based upon the strategy that they employed, we got interest from distributors like Owen and Oprah Winfrey and it also spurred my second film, Light Girls, which was on like three or four weeks ago. But it's a topic that unfortunately is not dying quickly. If you go online right now and look under a hashtag team light skin and hashtag team dark skin, these are dark skin and light skin women that have approximately 350,000 members apiece. And so this issue is still unfortunately in 2015 something that is impacting us. One of the things I'm always interested in in documentaries is how you find the people that you interview. So I was wondering, I thought it was wonderful the sister that you had open up the dialogue. I thought it was brilliant to have her to set a real foundation for understanding what was going to be presented in the film. But some of the other women that you interviewed, I was wondering where you found them and how that vetting process occurred. We had producers on the film that helped me. This is never a one-person venture. A film is a collaboration of people you trust and have certain expertise and they come together and they make it seamless. So people like Cheryl Grylls and Denise helped to put together experts and historians and sociologists. A friend of mine, Tim Foley, who's a psychiatrist and we gather people, experts but also friends that we've known have gone through these things and dealt with these things. And so we had various people help us bring this entire thing together. Obviously the title is Dark Girl so you're focusing on black women. One of the things that, I've seen this film several times and the clip where you're interviewing the two brothers, I think they're in Brooklyn. I was wondering, as you were filming, did you feel like, hey, that could be a whole nother film and is that something that you would be open to exploring? Because I think that is, there's a lot of meat on the bone there. Yeah. There's a lot of meat in that bone. It's interesting you should say that because my next film that I'm working on is called What is a Man? And it really asks the question, and this is something that I've been pondering for a long time, because is there a distinction between being born a male and becoming a man? Today it's assumed to a certain extent if you're born male, you're automatically a man. It was something that was very frightening to see on Oprah Winfrey's own channel a few months ago on the Elevon Zantz. I think it was three young black men and between them they have 110 children. And do you see that? It begs the question, is there a distinction between having a child, fathering a child and providing for that child? And the latter to me moves in the direction of manhood. There's something that we're not getting. And until we get it we will continue to repeat a pattern historically that I think is of total responsibility. So we want to examine what is manhood and what contributes to that consciousness and hopefully there'll be a discussion about it. Well I think that sounds wonderful because when I was viewing that program and I really love Iyanla, how do you pronounce her? Exactly, I'm in trouble the same time. I think she's so wonderful and I did see Light Girls and she was in the clip that you had with her I thought was wonderful. So I think any work that she does I'm all over and I think that what's interesting for me is I love your films but you also do a lot of documentary and humanitarian work so I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about not the Hollywood side necessarily but other ventures that you're involved in. Well documentaries to me are a very powerful tool because I call it edutainment. You can entertain people at the same time, deal with subject matters that are relevant I think and hopefully healing. We're not the healers, you all are the healers but we can create things to think about so that we can begin to resolve some of these issues which are very some great concern to me, some stats which not trying to be a downer but one out of four black men in Washington D.C. is HIV infected. Out of all of the AIDS cases in America with women 70% are black women. There are young girls in the L.A. public school system now, 10, 11, 12 years old pregnant. Grandma in many communities in this nation is 32. The imprisonment of young black men and women is increasing exponentially and if I can bring attention to it I'm not saying I can solve the problems but you guys can solve them by caring enough to do something. As filmmakers we just make films in hope that it creates some kind of dialogue but there are things that are of some concern that I think we should be paying attention to put it that way. I definitely agree with that. One of the things that I always carry with me from a black women's studies course that I took at City College, Dr. Janetta Richards, one of the things that she always tried to emphasize was there are silences within our community that are literally killing us and for black women you look at the HIV rate within the black community and domestic violence. It's a long list of issues that we really need to start in the home having these conversations and feeling comfortable. Having those conversations and I think as an artist and as a filmmaker the medium that you provide is a great bridge for helping many of us start having those conversations and normalizing those conversations. It's not a one-shot deal. It's an ongoing dialogue that we should be having within our homes and within our communities. I do agree that you're going to do your part and then we need to pick up the baton and do our part. I agree. I have another entity called the Duke Media Foundation which is a non-profit and we teach young kids from the age of 14 to 18 two things, media literacy which is an understanding of the jobs of the future in terms of media. Now media is thought of in terms of feature films and TV but a game called Grand Theft Auto made one billion dollars in three days and very few minorities are in that process. I don't know if you know that the great thing that's going on in Silicon Valley right now with the young Asian women is suing, this is a major and we're going to see how that comes out. We teach them media literacy. We also teach them financial literacy because in our communities no one is teaching us what is debt, what is compound interest, what is a credit card, what's a bank account. People like Mike Tyson made almost 740 million dollars and went bankrupt. It's a great thing. Nothing wrong with bankruptcy but if someone teaches you what is Wall Street, what is the stock market, what is savings, what is investment, if no one ever teaches those things the distinction between the spending of dollars and the use of dollars is a gigantic difference and so we should be learning I think more about that in a lot of communities. I think that's very, very real. I think one of the things that I really like about which is a good segue from one of my recent favorite Hollywood films that you and get Richard Dodd trying, I'm from Queens so I love 50 Cent and one of the things I love about him is his financial literacy and that he's very vocal about how he, however he came about his financial literacy he tries to preach that to young black kids that if you're making money don't go out and spend it all on something frivolous but put a certain amount of it away and I think that that starts in the home. Like for me, my grandmother, she opened up a bank account for me at Carver Bank which is a black-owned bank and anytime I got birthday money I put it in there and you know you have to, it doesn't mean I was a financial whiz growing into adulthood but I did have that awareness to not spend everything that I was earning and to manage, try to manage my debt. It doesn't mean how I managed my debt was perfect especially through my early 20s but it's something that resonates with me and I'm trying to instill that in my four-year-old daughter to really, at a very early age to be like you know money doesn't come easy and here are ways that you should manage it but I think for some young black kids who are looking to get into the entertainment field one of the things that I do like about 50 Cent is the understanding that you are your brand that you need to manage your money, you can't just count on money people to make the right choices for you people will do that but you need to be on top of things so that you can read your ledgers and understand what monies are coming in, understanding everything because or else you can end up like Mike Tyson or Red Fox or countless other black entertainers who make huge sums of money and it comes in and it goes out and they don't have anything to do with it. That's very true. So I was wondering one of the things that I was really interested in when I reached out for you to come is the accompanying book Dark Girls and it's a wonderful book so if you all haven't purchased it you can go in the back and do so. It's a really great photo, it has great photos in it and also short essays about the women in that book and I wanted you to say a little bit about how you decided to kind of extend the life on a certain level of Dark Girls but kind of have this complimentary book. Well I hope you take getting the book seriously not just for financial reasons but because we created it as a tool. A lot of young girls are still being bullied today in playgrounds and in schools and we created it what we call a tool in the Dark Girls book that says a couple of things. One, that God does not make mistakes. How you were born is beautiful no matter what color you are. Only one race, the human race, that's it. And so in this book we have dark-skinned women who have gone through the similar things that these girls are going through in terms of bullying etc. But I've transcended those things, become famous, powerful executives at studios, movie stars, grandmothers who have raised their children to be confident and have self-worth. So the book is filled with main people that you know but also people that have just based upon their humanness cared enough about these young girls to give them self-esteem and self-worth. And so the book is really a tool that you can give any young dark girl and say if someone says that you're not worthy you can hand this book to them and tell them they're a liar. Anyone have any thoughts they'd like to share, comments? I noticed that you had a lot of psychologists in the documentary. So I was wondering if you think that in the big picture we could get together and set up programs because dark girls is just one aspect of it but also just the big picture of the psychological effects of slavery which we still haven't dealt with yet. So I was just wondering if you think we could get together with psychologists and set up programs so that we can really truly address these issues so that we don't continue to pass them on generation to generation. I think that's a point well taken. I think psychologists, sociologists, historians creating in our educational institutions an awareness entity. You know, we've been told that, okay, so you all were slaves, get over it. Slavery was not that long ago. We were only able to start voting, what year was it? 65. 65, how many years ago was that? So we are still products on a psychological level, a quantum physics level of energy. We've inherited things that we have not shaken and to think you're just going to get over it that's not going to happen unless you address it on a number of various levels. And so my hope and prayer is that as a community we begin to go to our school systems and go to other places that in our churches and say these are issues that are still impacting us. We need to do something about it and go to our politics. Your vote is very important. There are things that you can get through political pressure also. So I'm simply saying that something is to be done. I agree, it's not over and we have to begin to take it seriously. I always use the analogy like we're on this beach and you look over there and you see a tsunami coming and the wind is blowing and the sand is drifting towards you. And maybe you have a good 10 minutes to get to higher ground. Some people are going to get in their vehicles and go to the mountaintop but there are still a lot of people who are going to say, hey man, would you hand me them Jordans? I'm not going to get in a truck. You know what I'm saying? We have to begin to take it seriously or adjust. It just wipes you out and I think we owe it to our children, even if not to ourselves to begin to come up with strategies that are going to make a difference. Personally and professionally, what has been among the proudest moments as an artist and as a man and what has been some of your most challenging moments as an artist and as a man? One of my most proudest moments is sitting right there, what she has become as a human being. She's been through a great deal in her life and how she's turned out. I'm very proud of her through her struggles and it's what you live for. You're children in your life, you know, it's a reflection of your good, bad and your ugly but she came out really good. It's very true. What are some of the most difficult and challenging moments? This is an industry of rejection and if you're big and black like me, you're not often seen as the good guy so you're constantly battling for people to recognize your humanity and to try to get roles and to transcend your skin color, you know, but to begin to be accepted as a director or an actor, producer or whatever based upon your ability. And when I was younger, that rejection drove me to drugs and drinking. But once I found meditation to put God on my life, it's a different journey. It's not easier, but I'm in a healthier place, put it that way. Yes, sir. God bless you, Mr. Duke. Thank you. Keep up the wonderful work and I would like to thank all your associates and family with the library for bringing you here to put on this wonderful presentation and keep up the wonderful work and keep us inspired. God bless you, thank you very much. Thank you. So I think we have time for one more question and this gentleman in the black and yellow. Thank you. Lately I've been noticing that there are more opportunities for black people behind the camera but what I haven't come to see is is there anyone who's talking about mentoring black people to learn how to finance these film projects? I don't know where you learned how to do it, when you learned how to do it, if someone taught you because it doesn't seem like that's common knowledge and you can't do the film without the fundraising. Well, we mentor as many people as we can through my foundation, etc. But the thing is, is that it's a different day. You can go to Indiegogo and other online sites, Kickstarter also, thank you, to begin to raise the dollars for a film, for a project that you're interested in doing. But this is the best time in the history of this industry to get into this business. There has never been a better time. Let me give you an example. At the Sundance Film Festival, there was an alpha you heard about this, there were these three young guys who made a feature film with three iPhones. They hardly spent any money on it at all. But the story that was written is brilliant. As a result, they got offered some several major studios to distribute it. You know what I'm saying? If you go online, there is a show called, on the air now, called Sunday in Philadelphia. It's always Sunday in Philadelphia? Yes. That started out as a web of so that these kids spent five or six hundred dollars a piece on creating. Danny DeVito saw it and took it too. So what I'm saying is, the dollars are not what's stopping. It's you committing yourself a thousand percent to making it happen. In other words, if you have an idea as a director, but you're not a cameraman, you must know at least three people with some cell phones. You know what I'm saying? And let's say the first film was not perfect. You're honing your craft. You're practicing it. And it's not failing. You're learning from the mistakes that you make, but have the courage to start tomorrow. Does that make any sense? That's the best mentoring I can give you. Yes, ma'am. Say it again. Feedback on the film. Oh my God. Just as a people, sometimes, we, I was at the Apollo Theater a couple years ago. I showed the film and this black lady a little later stood up and said, Mr. Duke, I appreciate the film, but why are you airing our dirty laundry? And I said, ma'am, with all due respect, because it's thinking of the house. The thing is, is that, you know, as a culture sometimes, the very things that are killing us, we hold in. It's like, instead of discussing it, instead of trying to find healing solutions, we hold it in and it eventually devours us. So yeah, there's been negative feedback, you know, well, how come you had women that were darker, not pretty enough, or the most ridiculous statements you could ever think of, but you don't let that stop you. You continue to do what you believe in. And there's, it was an old saying, you know, your opinion to me is your business. It's got nothing to do with me. You guys like quotes? Yeah. Can I leave you with three quotes? Sure. Three of my favorite quotes. The first one, Winston Churchill. True power is an individual's ability to move from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. That's true power. The second one is by anonymous. Aspire to inspire before you expire. Aspire to inspire before you expire. And the third one by anonymous is my favorite. In your lifetime, you will never see a smaller package than a person wrapped up in themselves. Whatever we blame, we empower. Whatever we blame, we empower. If it's somebody else's or something else's fault consistently, we have to wait until that entity changes its mind before change occurs. But see, if Dr. King had thought that way, if Major Evers and Malcolm had thought that way, if Rosa Parks had thought that way, we would still be in a situation where we would not be able to vote. Somebody stood up. Somebody stood up. And to stand up takes courage. And it wasn't just black folks that stood up. Human beings stood up and said, enough is enough. We're not taking anymore. And they used the power of themselves to give themselves a voice. When you get tired enough, you know, you never should put a rat in the corner for too long. But when we get tired enough, the voice will be heard, but we're not tired enough yet. So I'm not waiting for Hollywood or the media to change. I'm waiting for us to change. I think on that note, we're going to close out the conversation. Thank you so much, Mr. Bill Duke, for coming to San Francisco Public Library to celebrate Black History Month for us. Let's give him a hand. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much.