I didn't start out thinking that I could ever make films. I started out being a film lover, loving films, and wanting to have a job that put me close to them and close to filmmakers and close to film sets.

I feel like it had an impact, in that it started the attention that has been paid to what was happening. It started to get us into this whole conversation about prison reform, the whole bipartisan dialogue that's been happening over the past five, six years about this, where you have a Van Jones and a Newt Gingrich, and you have the Rick Perrys and so forth getting up and talking about the need to reform.

I know that sounds a little bit corny, but I've found some solace in that. I hope art can continue to do that for people, I really do.

The fact that's why the prisons and stock in private prisons rose the very day after the election results [for Donald Trump] were announced. The fact that progress that was made for people of color, for women, for LGBTQ people, are all at risk.

As long as you're in an environment where the worth of the project isn't based on the project but what its predecessors did, it's not truly inclusive.

I know how to make films and now I'm able to make films with the resources and the tools that match my imagination, and what filmmaker doesn't want to do that? I feel very fortunate to have that. I don't take it for granted.

The documentaries were something that I could do for a small amount of money, and then I felt like as long as I found the truth in the stories I was telling as a doc, I could teach myself filmmaking through doc filmmaking.