There’s something very important about films about black women and girls being made by black women. It’s a different perspective. It is a reflection as opposed to an interpretation, and I think we get a lot of interpretations about the lives of women that are not coming from women.

We've had these bursts of cool years here or there but that's not change. That's a trend. You only hope that this could be the beginning of true change.

More people have seen 13th on Netflix than have seen all my films put together between the Sundance winners and Selma, and the whole international distribution of film.

We have to find new ways to work without permission, new ways to turn corners and go through doors that are closed off to us to create our own audiences and our own material independently.

I did not have any problem with speaking up because my mother, my family, my grandmother, my aunt - I grew up in a family dominated by women - always encouraged me to do so. And if a girl is unafraid, then the world is her oyster.

It was easy for me to show the films to the studio and the network and say, "This is who I'm hiring."

There's never been a film with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the center released in theaters. Ever! One does not exist. You've only seen tele-films and stage plays about him. Yet, we have big screens biopics about all kinds of people. So, I think it's only right that there be a full-length feature about Dr. King. I don't think there could be enough of them, but there should be at least one. So, here it is!