There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.
I think once you have films in certain festivals you begin to have name recognition, and there are possibilities.
I am not interested only in telling a story, but I want to tell it my way. I don't want my accent, my temperament, my narrative style to be compromised to fit into a mold of the Hollywood type.
When you don't work together you can't emerge as a force. It becomes what some call a "lonely struggle" and individual self-destruction.
There are filmmakers like me in different parts of the world that have a story they want to tell, and it's a story that comes out of a certain historical reality within their own life. Then you get committed all the way and however long it takes, stay very committed.
Most young people make films to be accepted, to be discovered, when in fact that was the last idea with the group I went to film school with. To be discovered was not our intention. Our intention was to tell our story our way, and make our own mistakes and learn from film to film.
The true story is that black people need to tell their history. Very few films are made by black people about slavery. That itself is a crime because slavery is a very important historical event that has held our people hostage. Forget white people's role in it. In the end what's important is black people remain and live with the scars and psychological issues.
I firmly believe that the purpose of life is not this life. It is to equip us, whatever our role is going to be in the next life. And understanding God's story is really where I find the significance and purpose in my own story.
My parents had this relationship that was really terrifying. I mean, the level of hatred that they had, and the level of physical abuse - my mother would beat up my father, basically - and I think I was drawn to images on television that were bright and reflective.
God specializes in giving people a fresh start.
You look like a ghost," Bailey says. He can think of no better way to describe it. "You appear the same way to me, so which of us is real?