When I first saw a White Dutch person dressed up as Black Pete, I was both sickened and shocked. It's hard to stand next to someone who views your skin color and hair as a costume. As a filmmaker, whenever I get that feeling, I want to explore what motivates people to engage in such offensive behavior and enlighten folks about its origins.

[Zwarte Piet] is unfortunate, and just like the early American blackface films, if it offends a segment of the population, it shouldn't be shown again.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist-style church with a choir, a band, and music, but I've been asking myself my whole life, "Why is my own church, my own community, rejecting me because of my sexuality?".

I'm not an activist at all. I'm a filmmaker, and I wanted the people involved to tell their own story.

I saw footage of a well-known pastor holding a Bible and saying, "This book says homosexuals should be killed."

I both didn't know Owen [Suskind] beforehand and didn't have any connection to the autistic community. But Owen wasn't really a problem, because he participated in the writing of the book and wanted people to see him as he truly is. As far as the cameras, Owen lives in the moment and the cameras really didn't distract him.

After I read about Uganda's now famous "kill the gays" bill, I wanted to explore the religious forces behind it. As a gay man, I wanted to understand the folks who wanted to kill me and why.