'I Am Not Your Negro' director on the continuing struggle for equality

Record ID: 275916

  • Title: 'I Am Not Your Negro' director on the continuing struggle for equality
  • Date: 17th February 2017
  • Summary: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (FEBRUARY 6, 2017) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR RAOUL PECK SAYING: "Well it's incredible because James Baldwin, although all these words in the film, he wrote them 40 or 50 years ago, but we feel as if just this morning he wrote them down. It's incredible because his analysis of this country, the description, his knowled
  • Embargoed: 3rd March 2017 01:19
  • Keywords: I Am Not Your Negro Raoul Peck interview James Baldwin Oscars awards
  • Location: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES / UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
  • City: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES / UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Film
  • Reuters ID: LVA00463RVYOD
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: ++CONTAINS PROFANITY++
    Ten years in the making, director Raoul Peck says his documentary "I Am Not Your Negro" is more relevant than ever.
    The Oscar-nominated film is about James Baldwin, the American novelist, essayist, playwright and poet, and conceptualizes the book he was writing at the time of his death, "Remember This House." The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr but only 30 pages of it were completed.
    Peck told Reuters that Baldwin's conjectures are as relevant and poignant today as they were then, saying: "It's incredible because his analysis of this country, the description, his knowledge of this country is rooted in something very fundamental. That's what he tried to do, he tried to explain this so-called dream that is not a dream for everybody so he went as far to really deconstruct the whole narrative that we have about this country of dreams."
    "Although all these words in the film, he wrote them 40 or 50 years ago, we feel as if just this morning he wrote them down."
    Peck also told Reuters that he's heartened to see progress in society as a whole as well as within the film industry but admits there is more that can be done.
    He explained: "I do think, and hope, that the message will be that the Academy has done its part, they have started changing some rules but the big elephant in the room is the production, it's who gives the green light for a movie and who are the executives? This has to change and there has to be some sort of action, we cannot just wait for God or for an angel to come down and change things. We need, as professionals, to change the industry."
    "I Am Not Your Negro" is in theaters now. The Oscars take place in Los Angeles on February 26.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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