I just remember not having access to films as a young person who loved films but living in Compton.

I think good publicists are just like good mommies - always looking out, making sure folks are comfortable and making sure that folks are on time and making sure that folks are getting what they need and know what they need to do.

When I'm marketing a film, whether its mine or someone else's, I work with a great deal of strategy and elbow grease until the job is done. It's pretty simple really. I just dive in and start digging. Yes, I'm fortunate to know the in's and out's of a true studio-level marketing campaign. But really, anyone who is diligent and well-researched can pull it off too. Its easier for me, but it doesn't make it impossible for others.

I'm a prison abolitionist because the prison system as it is set up is just not working. It's horrible.

Is there deeply embedded change within our industry? And I would say, as a black filmmaker, it's easy for me to focus my attention on black work, but true change would include brown work, and it would include work by Asian-Americans, and it would include natives, and it would include women, and it would include more LGBTQ voices.

What we tried to do in 13th was get to the bottom of that. What were they motivated by? But certainly the attention that the Attorney General's office paid to it allowed for there to be some dialogue across the aisle that I think were the first steps then in change.

Some black filmmakers will say, "I don't want to be considered a black filmmaker, I'm a filmmaker." I don't think that. I'm a black woman filmmaker.