Usually, you have two people in a scene, and in the history of cinema the hero is most likely going to be the white guy. And the other guy is his friend who is carrying the bag or whatever, and you're not going to light for that guy.

I just don't think there's a lot of support for the woman's voice in cinema, and it becomes really difficult to raise that money and start again every time.

I make films about Black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a Black man, doesn't mean that he can't see them as a white man or she can't see them as a white woman.

You know, often films that are deemed positive, nobody wants to see them.

It's very nourishing and collaborative - kind of the true essence of what one would want an artistic collaboration to be [the collaboration with Oprah Winfrey].

I feel mushy these days when I think about art and artists and the work that lies ahead for us. There's good work to be done and there's joy to be found in it, I think.

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.