I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.

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.

When you force sleep, it doesn't happen.

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.

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.

For far too long, independent voices have been relegated to places where these ideas are not seen on a mass level.

All these women had directed movies that I loved on the film festival circuit, but couldn't get a job making television. That's how locked down TV is.