Tim reid movies and tv shows8/10/2023 ![]() If I do have any power, I’m going to use it to try to reverse that trend. I’m sick of the dysfunctional images that come across our movie screens that show us being one-dimensional, angry, violent people, loveless, hostile … it’s very damaging to the psyche of our young people. ![]() If you look at the things I’ve done like “Frank’s Place,” I’ve always gone against the grain in a sense. I know that the system still works.Īt a time when hard-edged films about African-American life in urban America seem to capture the attention of corporate entertainment executives and moviegoers, why did you choose to produce what you have called “a bittersweet love story” set in the segregated South, to launch your directorial debut? We have two students who are graduating this coming year–hard-to-place kids who wouldn’t have had a chance, but they’re getting ready to graduate. I have a scholarship there that’s for people such as myself … people who otherwise wouldn’t have gotten a shot. I’m on the board of trustees at Norfolk State. I think they were harder on me than anybody has ever been and I thank God for that.īlack colleges still do that, probably not as much as they used to. Those were the days when, like in my movie, “Once Upon A Time … When We Were Colored,” people who were colored had now become Negroes. And when I got to Norfolk State, those Black men and women who were in class didn’t tolerate that. I was a street kid who really knew how to maneuver and do things to get by. I needed someone, not to nurture me, but to give me a strong hand, to really guide me. I couldn’t have gone to a college other than at a place like Norfolk State. When I came out of high school I was an underachiever, I didn’t have good grades. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t gone to Norfolk State and a Black college. Actually, that’s what’s been the thorn in the side of a lot of people I do business with.ĭid your undergraduate experience at the historically Black Norfolk State University influence your acting and filmmaking career? I do have a degree, it just happens to be in business and marketing, which by the way has helped me tremendously in filmmaking. And it has to be o.k’d by the same system that has been partially responsible for the images being negative in the first place. All of us, including myself, have to go to the system and compromise and pitch to get our story told. But where it’s still a very closed shop is in the area of control and power and that is financing and distribution and really controlling the images that are going to be made. It’s certainly opened up in terms of the number of Blacks in front of the camera and to some extent behind the camera. ![]() How would you respond to that assessment? When it comes to us, they usually put money on the table, we get a percentage of things, but we very rarely have any control over the negative and that’s the big difference.įor decades the film industry has been known as a closed or semi-closed society when it comes to people of color. The negative is partially owned by members of the production company, which is more akin to what Hollywood is used to doing. BET is one of the financiers of most of the films we’ve done. ![]() There are certainly a lot of Black filmmakers who have studio deals and are making movies - the only difference is that they don’t have ownership in them like our company has. No, it’s not the only way, but it’s the only one I found open to me. Is the formation of an independent film company the only real avenue for people of color to achieve parity and control in the film industry? ![]()
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