Click here to view the embedded video.

Boys Don’t Cry is one of my favorite films, for the story but primarily for the way Hilary Swank totally nailed the genderqueer character of Brandon Teena.  I am presently casting for Stud Life which also has a genderqueer female lead. It is dawning on me that I am in for the long haul. It took THREE YEARS before Hilary Swank was cast!! BTW Shane from the L-Word also auditioned for the role.

According to Wikipedia. “Swank prepared for the role by dressing and living as a man for at least a month, including wrapping her chest in tension bandages and putting socks down the front of her pants in much the same way that Brandon Teena did. Her masquerade was so masterful that her neighbors believed that the young man (Swank in male character) coming and going from her home was Swank’s visiting brother.”  In the end the dedication earned her an Oscar.

I put out the casting call a month ago and have received an overwhelming positive response from actors for every part EXCEPT that of  JJ – the Black 20-something stud lesbian. This raises some issues around who goes for parts, but who is actually out there to play certain roles.

I don’t believe that you have to be genderqueer in your daily life to play a butch dyke, a transman or transwoman but you will need to take the risk to go outside your prescribed learned behaviour in terms of gender as Swank did for Boys Don’t Cry. But isn’t that what acting is about? Being able to live in someone else’s skin?

I would like Stud Life to taste and smell queer not look GAY as those BBC Dramas or Hollywood films. But do those productions cast normative people because they think that is more palatable for their audiences? Or could it be that if there was more diversity in casting then mainstream audiences would be more acceptable to variety?

Would it be easier if I had made JJ white? Are there more white actresses who are happy to play genderqueer and take the risk to do a butch lesbian role than Black actresses? So far I have had many handsome studs who are not actors wanting to be cast as JJ. Should I go down the route of casting an non-actor?

I have had many applications from men of colour who are quite happy to play gay so is this a woman thing?

My friends keep telling me that I am not going to get a woman, let alone a Black woman actress who is gender-queer as she would have given up long ago!  But isn’t there a newer generation of Black actresses who do not care and dress and look how they please. This is 2010 not 1980!

These are questions running around in my head.

]]> http://www.blackmanvision.com/lesbian-film-culture/stud-life-the-politics-and-aesthetics-of-casting-a-genderqueer-film/feed/ 0 http://www.blackmanvision.com/lesbian-film-culture/stud-life-movie-casting-call/ http://www.blackmanvision.com/lesbian-film-culture/stud-life-movie-casting-call/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:16:13 +0000 BlackmanVision http://www.blackmanvision.com/?p=558 STUD LIFE – CASTING CALL – LONDON ACTORS
Mates b4 Muff
Writer/Director: CampbellX
Producers – Stella Nwimo & Nadya Kassam

BD Women Clip from BlackmanVision on Vimeo. One of Campbell’s award-winning films

Stud Life is the new feature length film on queer street life in London written and directed by CampbellX. The film is a post-modern LGBT She’s Gotta Have It for the YouTube generation. Stud Life asks the perennial queer question, how do you choose between your lover and your best friend?

Stud Life is filmed over 10 days in London. Please note Stud Life contains lesbian, gay male and transgender content and scenes of a sexual nature and is a lo-budget independent film shot on HD video.

AUDITIONS
Dates of auditions will be 19, 21 22 July 2010 in London.
22 July will be the call back day.
Please email head shots and CVs to studlifethemovie@gmail.com stating what role you are auditioning for. Please include links to any videos of yourself online.
DEADLINE 16TH JULY 17:00 HOURS

CHARACTERS
JJ – 20 something Black butch masculine female, often mistaken for a guy.
Seb – JJ’s best friend and confidante and side-kick is a white ethnic 20 something emo gay man.
Smack Jack – 20-something Anglo English posh boy. He is smitten by Seb, who takes no notice of him.
Elle – 20-something lesbian hi-femme professional dominatrix. JJ falls for her but realises she is very hot to handle.
Manchester Joe – 30 something chavvy and thug sort of guy, Has anger issues and internalised homophobia.
White Man – 60 something
Thai Woman – 20 something
Bouncer – 30 something Black man
Iranian gay guy – 20 something
Older white boyfriend of Iranian guy – 50 something
Butch Boi – 20 something masculine woman
Hooded Youth 1 – 18-25
Hooded Youth 2 – 18-25
Flirty beautiful feminine woman – 20 – 60 something
1950’ s Bride – 30 something tattoed burlesque type woman
1950’s Groom – 30 something 1950’s style and vibe
Woman in Loo – 30-something
Barber 1 – 20 something – African
Barber 2 – 40 something – African
Hairdresser 1- 20 something Jamaican woman
Hairdresser 2 – 20 something – Black woman
Buppy woman – 30 something – Black aspirational woman
Buppy man – 40 something – Black aspirational type man
Old Skool Butch – 60 something woman
Chic Femme – 60 something woman
Hippy Femme - 30 something woman
Toi Boi – 30 something transman (FTM)
Asian bride – 20 something Asian woman
Bride’s Mother – 40 something Asian woman
Bride’s father – 40 something Asian man
Bridesmaid 1 – 20 something Asian woman
Bridesmaid 2 – 20 something Asian woman
Bridesmaid 3 – 20 something Asian woman

I am so sad that Lena Horne has died. I somehow thought she would always be a part of the landscape, getting older and still looking fabulous, but she had a long run and 92 is a good age to cross over to the other side. Many years ago I pitched making a documentary about her to terrestrial broadcaster. She was of no significance to the Commissioning Editor. It is heartening to know that she was however valued by other people. While doing extensive research on her I learned:

• She got married in a black dress.
• The song Stormy Weather from the movie of the same name, was spliced into the movie so it could be easily spliced out, so as not to offend cinema audiences in the Southern states of the USA.
• Her family was friendly with Paul Robeson and supported him financially. That association with Robeson who was a Communist, caused her to be blacklisted in 1950.
• She described composer Billy Strayhorn who was openy gay as her “soulmate’ and slept with his photo by her bed.
• As she was *too light-skinned* to play a maid, Max Factor invented a make up to darken her called Light Egyptian, which was then used on Ava Gardner to play a *mulatto* in the movie Showboat.
• Many other Black actors thought she was making trouble, and would lose them income, when she complained about the demeaning of roles they were given. Hattie McDaniel had a more pragmatic approach – “I’d rather play a maid and make $700 a week, than be a maid for $7.”
• She sang “Now,” at a Carnegie Hall benefit for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee a Black Power organization in 1963. It became her first hit.

I just gathered together some links to make sense of the disaster in Haiti. I wanted to dig a little deeper about the people who live and love in Haiti. Haiti is the First Black Republic in the Western Hemisphere as a result of the Haitian Revolution a slave revolt, led by Toussaint L’Ouverture. I wanted to humanise the people for myself and for people interested in art and culture too.  Haiti’s debts started when they had to buy their freedom from France to compensate the slave owners for the loss of income. Here are some links I found.

Art

• Ghetto Biennale is an exhibition in Port au Prince, challenging art hierarchy and discourse and critiquing globalisation.
• WomenArts is a resource focussing on female artists in Haiti and includes books about Haiti.

Film

• Interview with Haitian filmmakers Michele Stephenson and Guetty Felin who put together a film festival about Haitian film heritage.
• Haitian Film School where the students are providing up to the minute footage as long as they are able about the earthquake.
• Haitian Movie database which lists Haitian filmmakers. I am not sure how often it is updated.
• Cousines a feature film made by one of the more mainstream Haitian filmmakers, Richard Senecal
• Of Men and Gods a documentary by Anne Lescot and Laurence Magloire,  explores LGBT life in Haiti and it’s relationship to voodoo.

Donations

• Yele a foundation started by Haitian-American musician Wyclef Jean.
• The Foundry who has a history of working with Haitian artists has set up a donation which goes directly to people in Port au Prince.
• Madre has worked tirelessly in Haiti since the 80′s.

Analysis

• Port-au-Prince before the earthquake, described by Haitian writers and visitors to the island.
• Naomi Klein itemises very clearly what the USA can do now for Haiti.
• Carl Lindskoog explains how the USA contributed to the corruption and severe economic status in Haiti.

LGBT

• Haitian Gays and Lesbians Alliance Inc. is the first leading community based organization which supports Haitian, born or identified, LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transsexual) people.
• International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission’s response to the Haitian earthquake.
• Homosexual activity between consenting adults in private has been legal since 1986. Haitian Lesbians : Loud & Proud describes the life of diaspora Haitian lesbians and bisexual women.

You got funding for your film after submitting your precious script or treatment to a funding body. Someone liked it! In fact someone out there loved it so much they want to invest their money in you and in your film. Celebrate! Go out with your friends. Feel the love because the next months are going to be hard and you will need your friends. This may all sound basic to some people, but to others maybe not.

1. Meet the funders with your producer who will have read the contract and has some questions. If you are the producer as well as director, read the contract very carefully and ask any questions about things you don’t understand. Clarify. Clarify.
2. Make sure you understand the needs of the funders. Yes they love the script, they love you. It is a kissy kissy lovefest. But they usually have an agenda er …goal. Find out what it is from other people who have received funding previously, if you are not alert to this, the relationship can turn sour very quickly.
3. Find out how many stakeholders need to see the film before the rough cut is signed off. It may not be just the people you meet up with, but other invisible backroom people who have a say. Build this into your schedule.
4. Get a good senior production manager or line producer to manage the shoot. Not your mate!  Get someone who is skilled and comes with cash flow templates, contracts, and other tricks. She – it is usually a ‘she’ will negotiate good deals for you. She usually comes with loads of contacts too. If you are not very experienced these are like gold dust. She will also prevent you from going over budget.
5. Work with a crew who believes in you and your vision. Yeah I know you are paying them and they should get all enthusiastic because you are flashing the cash. However you need to have support of the crew because after several days working long hours, they will be tired and narky.
6. While you are at it, don’t forget to feed people. Humans on film crews somehow get primal, and food is one of the basic needs. If you feed them food they like, they will be very happy. This is for any film whether funded or not.
7. If it is a drama get professional actors or performers to be in your film. It is tempting to use friends who would LOVE to be in a movie. I am passing on this warning  from more experienced directors than me.
8. Film sets are notorious for having loads of people hanging around. Leave that to the blockbuster movies with their multimillion budgets. On your lo-budget movie every penny has to count. Check with your line producer if you really need everyone. More people means more mouths to feed, more people to move around which eats money. Be brutal.
9. But don’t delete the stills photographer who will take stills for your film. Trust me, stills are better than frame grabs for press and publicity. And you can afford a photographer with funding.
10. Enjoy the experience it is like no other.

Vanity Fair - kd lang and Cindy Crawford

Stealing Beauty was a panel discussion chaired by Diva magazine Editor Jane Czyzselska. I was on the panel with Artist, DJ and performer Sadie Lee and fashion historian and cultural critic Elizabeth Wilson.

The event explored how LGBT culture plunders dominant straight culture and uses it to create something new and vibrant.

In my presentation I brought up three concepts. And here is a sample of my talk.

• The Guerilla Gaze
• Analog Duplication of Dominance
• Dominant Dilution

The Guerilla Gaze
My definition of The Guerilla Gaze is the ability of LGBT people to derive pleasure from images not intended for us. We queer the

Grace Jones - still looking fabulous

images in our imagination subverting the inherent (hetero)sexuality of the dominant narratives presented in movies, music videos, adverts and TV shows. In movies highly femininised women become objects of desire for women, as well as objects of identification. Butch lesbians may model their image according to the “thug style” as seen by hip hop stars like Fifty Cents or Flo Rida. They sometimes mimic the pose presented by the brute force of masculinity of Brad Pitt in Fight Club or Marlon Brando in A Street Car Named Desire usually in a vest.

The Guerilla Gaze also throws light on people within film or TV narratives or within culture who are not considered objects of desire by mainstream heterosexual commodified desire. Our eyes are drawn to men and women who are “othered”. We elevate women in particular who defy the odds – who are older yet fierce, who bend gender, who are rebels. Do we do this because we feel they are the “Ugly Ducklings” of mainstream culture, and in our eyes they are transformed into Swans as we would hope to be perceived?

Analog Duplication of Dominance
The definition of analog duplication of dominance is that oppressed peoples often steal traditions from dominant cultures and with time the original meaning often changes or is subverted. I say this because with each generation our memories become increasingly more faint to the point that contemporary people often do not know the origins of particular behaviours, images, styles and traditions.  Our collective memories are thus analog.  If our memories were digital we would remember everything accurately all the time.

In the USA the system of the Houses eulogised in the movie Paris is Burning, recreates the notion of nuclear family with House Mothers and Fathers and children. Houses are made up of queer African American and Latina Americans rejected by mainstream LGBT cultures or their own bio-families. The Houses host balls in which people parody or mimic images of (WASP) power in the USA. For example one of the categories is Executive Realness. The participants perform “Business man” but always with flair. They cannot resist that extra flourish and transpose beauty and colour over the drabness of a grey suit. Popular gay slang now refers to LGBT people being “one of the children” or “family” possibly not realising their origins in Houses in the ghettos of the USA in the 1980s.

Fem - Eve relishes the apple

My work especially Fem is about stealing iconic images of femininity from dominant culture including fairy tales, religion, movies, fashion. I queer them with a particular lesbian sensibility – Eve does regret eating the apple and will not be punished. Eve is also a Black woman, reminding us that we all came from Africa and subverting the dominant Eurocentric Biblical image of Eve.

Dominant Dilution
Mainstream straight culture sucks off cultures of marginalised peoples, and regurgitates it back to everyone bleached and ironed out for mass capitalistic consumption.

August 1993 issue of Vanity Fair with k.d. lang and Cindy Crawford

Words like naff whose original meaning was dull, heterosexual, mundane or trade meaning same sex partner were from Polari the language spoken by LGBT people and people in the underworld in the past. Prince gained major popularity in the 1980s but how many people know that his style was very similar to Little Richard from the 1960s who sang songs with coded queer lyrics. Madonna appropriated vogueing a dance style created by queer African American and Latina Americans for her video Vogue, while not mentioning anyone of colour in her homage list.

Sometimes, very rarely, a queer image, created by a queer person, with a queer sensibility is used by a mainstream company to sell their product. This happened once with the Vanity Fair which had on their 1993 cover, kd lang and Cindy Crawford photographed by Annie Liebovitz. If you can think of any others please let me know. The image is particularly interesting because it is gender queer, and kd lang a butch woman is also being used to sell glamour to a straight audience.

People are saying butches are invisible in mainstream films. They have always been there, but we may have not liked what we saw like June ‘George’ Buckridge in The Killing of Sister George or Rosa Klebb, a butch Russian lesbian who has a dangerous shoe in the James Bond film from Russia with Love.

I will be in the panel at the Butch Voices Conference called – Is That Me on TV? – 22nd August 2009 – chaired by Cheryl Dunye (Stranger Inside, Watermelon Woman), Campbell X (Fem, BD Women), Kortney Ryan Ziegler (Still Black), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) & Jack Halberstam (Female Masculinity).

You may disagree with the list and it would be interesting to hear if you think they are indeed butch or trans, just some girl in a suit, or just a tough broad. Ha!

1. Marlene Dietrich  in Morocco as Mademoiselle Amy Jolly. Dietrich is audacious, chivalrous and causes the woman to melt when she kisses her.
2. Katherine Hepburn in Sylvia Scarlett as Sylvia Scarlett. Here is a rather camp sequence with Cary Grant. But doesn’t Hepburn look handsome.
3. Queen Latifah in Set it Off as Cleo. I don’t mind she dies at the end. It is noble and heroic and explosive.
4. Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry as Brandon Teena. Painful to watch as it is a true story but Hilary Swank is gawky, red-neck and  sexy.
5. Gina Gershon in Bound as Corky. A butch who lives and gets the broad.
6. Yolanda Ross in Stranger Inside as Treasure.  Hot dark-skinned and Afrocentric.
7. Silas Howard in By Hook or By Crook as Shy.  Gender queer, avante-garde and complex.
8. Sonja Sohn in The Wire as Kima Greggs.  Is she butch or just a tough cop. One of the few flawed lesbian characters intelligently handled in mainstream television.
9. Josiane Balasko in Gazon Maudit as Marijo. A rare sighting of an older bulldagger, and in French cinema to boot.
10. Pamela Sneed in BD Women as Butch Daddy. Reclaiming the glory days of the Harlem Rennaissance.

Who are your hot butches on film or TV?

From 2 July – 18 October 2009 the National Portrait Gallery has an exhibition Gay Icons and related events all celebrating the notion of gay iconic. Sandi Toksvig explains in a Guardian article she hopes the exhibition will “..give courage to those people who still struggle with their sexuality. It might make people feel better about themselves and it might make other people rethink their perceptions of gay life.”

I will be chairing the panel Fade to Black on 9th August 15.00 – 17.15 at the National Portrait Gallery.  On the panel will be film director Pratibha Parmar, writer Andrea Stuart and performer Maria Rosa Young after the screening of Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman.

My icons were not about making me feel better about being gay as Sandi recommends. I loved the people listed here because they appeared deviant, quirky, trashy, transgressive or were just plain ornery.

1. Lena Horne – She got married dressed entirely in black. How recalcitrant is that?  Here she sings Stormy Weather from the movie of the same name.
2. Sylvester – An African American man who was not afraid to sing in falsetto and wear make up and fabulous costumes and look like a girl. Here he sings You Make me Feel Mighty Real. I defy anyone to stay still while this is playing!
3. Nina Simone – civil rights activist, Pan Africanist and fierce diva. I had the pleasure of seeing her perform. After throwing her usual tantrums she settled down into a goosebump raising gig. Nina Simone Performs I Put a Spell on You live in 1992.
4. Liberace - The Daily Mirror columnist “Cassandra”!!!(William Connor) described Liberace as “a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love.” 1950′s code for er.. gay. Liberace sued the Daily Mirror for libel and won! Ha!
5. Anna Nicole Smith – didn’t fair as well in the courts. In May of 1994, Maria Antonia Cerrato who was Smith’s housekeeper/nanny, sued her for $2 million, charging sexual assault and sexual harassment. Anna Nicole Smith lost and filed for bankruptcy. Anna Nicole Smith sings My Heart Belongs to Daddy badly, but looking fabulous.
6. Marilyn Monroe – The original and much imitated blonde bombshell. She was smart, witty and only wore Channel No. 5 in bed, even when bleeding much to the consternation of her maids. Marilyn Monroe being interviewed  in the Person to Person program about her own production company.
7. Grace  Jones - Jamaican artist and performer who remains androgynous, fierce and raw. I love the fact that she has never forgotten her Jamaican roots and pushes the boundaries of how an African descent woman can ‘perform’ sexy in the music industry.  Pull up to the Bumper is still rude. No? OK it’s really about cars.
8. Beth Ditto – out, loud, proud, fat  femme lesbian who is into butch dykes and is not afraid to say so on every occasion.  Writes her own songs too. Bet somehow she doesn’t end up being sectioned. Just sayn! Beth Ditto talks about bullying.
9. Marlon Brando – just loved his beautiful sensuous face, animal sexuality, surly ways and politics. I think he must have really, really,  worked out for A Streetcar Named Desire judging from how he looked before and after this role.
10. Derek Jarman – Any gay person who can get funding to make an homerotic film entirely in Latin and then have it shown on TV back in the day deserves just iconic status. Sebastiane was made in 1976!

So who are your gay icons?

Click here to view the embedded video.

People who say he was trying to be white are missing the point entirely and have very little understanding of African descent cultures and the complex relationship to pigmentocracy in the New World. Within African American and Caribbean cultures what is often valued and considered attractive is never white skin but light skin, and hair with the African kink taken out. The so-called desire for people of colour to be white remains a white pre-occupation.

In addition Michael Jackson looked increasingly more gender androgynous as time went by. His maleness disappearing underneath wigs, red lipstick and a made up face. His eyes more wide open and doe like through surgery. He began to look like a mutant version of Diana Ross on whom it was rumoured he modelled his look. This “look” did not and does not hamper record sales. However had he been a hip hop star his career would have sank without a trace.

It has been reported that Joe Jackson, Michael’s father repeatedly told Michael he was ugly, his nose was too big. In addition Michael reported that his brothers also teased him. This form of abuse on top of the physical punishment Michael experienced must have had an effect on Michael’s psyche. So in addition to being incredible driven, he must have also been full of self loathing and doubts about his own enormous talents. It is interesting that the entire family has changed their noses through surgery.

Michael also looked and acted like an effeminate boy and and later man. I am almost certain that this was unsettling to his apparently seeming macho father and teenage brothers.

The tragedy of Michael Jackson to me represents a failure of some African Caribbean/American parents to accept a different kind of masculinity in their sons, other than the posturing posing plastic hypermasculinity now almost compulsory and ubiquitous in African descent culture.

Would Michael Jackson still be alive if he had the strength to be like Prince or Little Richard and just accept who he was – a wonderful effeminate, made-up dandy boy?

Still from Oil Spill - The Exxon Valdez Disaster ©Smoking Dogs Films 2009

Smoking Dogs Films is located in Hackney London. It is made up of John Akomfrah OBE, Lina Gopaul, and David Lawson who were members of the highly acclaimed and award-winning Black Audio Film Collective whose titles included Handsworth Songs and Seven Songs for Malcolm X. Their most recent documentary,  Oil Spill – The Exxon Valdez Disaster, will be transmitted on BBC 2 on the 26th March at 9pm.

Why the name change from Black Audio to Smoking Dogs?
Black Audio dissolved as a collective in 1998 an several members went on to do other things like music, more gallery based work and visual arts. And so the three of us who wanted to continue working in film thought it was time to plant some new grass. Running the collective had been an incredibly complicated political and cultural project involving trade unions, grant making bodies, local councils and television stations. We wanted to do something looser and freer. So the name change was part of the overhaul of priorities and agendas. It offered the possibility to put on hold some of the complex institutional negotiations running a collective entailed.

Also by the end, much of the collective’s project, the fore-grounding of Black representation and alternative narrative strategies had become familiar tropes of Black independent cinema. So the name change was about grappling with and naming our transition/evolution to a new cultural project. When you formulate a new manifesto or adopt a new identity or take on new set of concerns, its really important to signal that in the most iconic way possible. And a name change suggests that – its says we outta here y’all. We on a new tip now, we on the move.

What is the ethos behind Smoking Dogs?
After the fifteen years of collective practice our desire was to create a new atelier in which to do challenging, inspiring, provocative work across a range of platforms – cinema, television, galleries. And to enjoy it!! And so from the beginning the idea was very much to try to widen the visual and narrative possibilities of black related subjects. We want to create a space in which we can continue to have complete control over our output and the conditions of the work.

One of our favorite books is As Serious as Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz (Allison & Busby, 1977) by Val Wilmer. We loved the people she chose as her subjects like Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman. But more than anything, we loved the title of the book : As Serious As Your Life. And that pretty much became the defining mantra for us : lets do fun and interesting shit. But that’s as serious as our lives. And if we are going to be poor or unpopular, fine. But lets be poor and unpopular our way!

What inspired you to make the film about the Exxon Valdez disaster?

Like the Berlin Wall coming down, or the end of apartheid, the Exxon Valdez disaster was one of those zeitgeist defining events for our generation. It was the first time many of us saw an environmental disaster on that scale, the first inkling of what had changed in our relationship with fossil fuels and when the first green shoots of eco-consciousness started to take root in our souls.

And it happened twenty years ago to the day. We wanted to remind people that it happened and that the effects of that spill are still with us today.

The other thing was just honoring a promise to ourselves to do more environmental based work. Because, the name Smoking Dogs always suggested for us an environmentalist/ecological interest. We are the smoking beagles of those ghastly laboratory experiments with cigarettes!!!

Why do you think people don’t associate people of color with environmental issues?
Part of it is just to do with the metro-centric prism through which “Black politics ” is viewed both within as well outside Black circles. And it is by no means the truth of Black life on the planet. If you live and work in Sub Sahara Africa, environmental questions are not marginal to your life. They frame it in a very concrete way and your political activity or cultural work reflects that. Fela Kuti was singing about multinationals and what they do to the African environment in the 1970s!!

And if you are a South Asian artist working on the subcontinent, what the agri-multinational Monsanto wants to do with rice, is not marginal at all.

The disassociation happens because to be Black is assumed to be a wholly self contained single issue entity. Paul Gilroy calls this racilogical reasoning which is certainly rampant in the broadcast and film worlds. The assumption is if you are Black then all you ever think about or are concerned with are racial issues. But we are not one-dimensional.

When we went to Alaska to make the Exxon film we were warmly received as filmmakers. They were so amazed that we had come all the way from the UK to make a film about an event which happened 20 years ago because many we met knew of our work. They kept reminding us of the awards we had won, our achievements and John’s OBE. It was really humbling and made us feel even more determined to do justice to their story.

They knew and we knew that there some issues that are universally defining. And one of those is about our global relationship to hydro carbon fuels. But it’s also about the impact of those fuels on our planet. So we don’t feel we are trespassing on someone’s patch. It is our land too.

What are you working on next?
We are extending our fictional productions. We have two fictional films in development one based in Africa, one in the UK and a six-part series for here. We are mentoring younger talented film makers to get more exposure for their work. And after so many years we are aiming to film our feature documentary on Fela Kuti later this year