The idea that we criminalize fellow human beings based on optics, based on the need to progress in politics and gain power, and for economic reasons and financial reasons, for financial gains, and we throw out humanization for criminalization.

I wish I could be the black woman Soderbergh, and put the camera on my shoulder and shoot beautifully while I directed.

I know that there are a lot of great women that have gone before me, so it's important to acknowledge them.

A lot of work was done with one of my best friends and editor, Spencer Averick, who's edited everything I've ever made from the very, very first documentaries; the very, very first films I made were docs, so we learned the form together.

Ignore the glass ceiling and do your work. If you're focusing on the glass ceiling, focusing on what you don't have, focusing on the limitations, then you will be limited. My way was to work, make my short... make my documentary... make my small films... use my own money... raise money myself... and stay shooting and focused on each project.

Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.

By the end of the documentary [ '13th'], you really understand what prison is, what the prison industrial complex is, where this whole Black Lives Matter movement comes from, the history of resistance, the history of how politicians have used criminality over the decades for a particular political gain. It's to give people an understanding of it so they can make their own decisions about how they want to be in the world.