I wanted to make a black story about South Africa. Unfortunately, no producer in the United States would put one penny into a black story.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We know so much about the European food story, and we're getting to know about the American food story; but we know so little about the African food story.
What we are trying to do now, this new generation of African writers, is to write about what it is to be a human being living in a particular African country. These are stories that resonate with anyone, anywhere.
I'm not going to be labeled a black filmmaker. I am not here to just tell black stories. I'm here to tell all kinds of stories, musicals and dramas.
Americans think African writers will write about the exotic, about wildlife, poverty, maybe AIDS. They come to Africa and African books with certain expectations.
I don't think there's enough breadth to the stories told about African-Americans.
If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.
I would love to do a film in Africa.
I have a bee in my bonnet as to how few black historical figures one sees on film; incredible stories, stories from which we are living the legacy and which just don't get made.
I've made it my mission to make movies starring African American actors and about the African American experience and put them in the mainstream. They're very universal stories I've told - every movie I've done.
African narratives in the West, they proliferate. I really don't care anymore. I'm more interested in the stories we tell about ourselves - how, as a writer, I find that African writers have always been the curators of our humanity on this continent.