President Obama is a man who had certain advantages because of the civil rights movement. He had the opportunity to go to some of the best schools in this country - schools that train you how to run the political paradigm, not challenge it. The leaders of the Black Power Movement were challenging that paradigm.

Some of these things I saw in foreign films - African films, Cuban films - long before I decided to really go on this course as an actor. I started to think about what values I saw in those films that I wanted to bring to my projects

Today's cinema is a proliferation of comedies, which are in some ways creating caricature images. They're one-dimensional.

My Toussaint [Louverture] film is in limbo. We still hope after all this time that we can find another way to get this film done.

Mother Earth is in pain and ailing because of global warming.

I try to find hope in struggle and resistance in small places as much as I can.

Whole ideology of consumption almost to the point of religion. Whether it's the consumption of entertainment or the consumption around buying things, we're so caught up with our appetites that we don't have a clear distinction about what we need and what we just want. Plus, the decline of trade unions is a factor. When you have powerful unions, you have a working class that is politicized.