I am trying to stay away from this position of me "returning to my roots." As if my roots are that I'm only comfortable working on low-budget, small films. That's not the case at all.

American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them.

I used the principles of Kickstarter to make 'She's Gotta Have It.' We filmed that in 1985 to 1986. The final cost was $175,000. I didn't have that money. It was friends, grants, donations. We saved our bottles for the nickel deposit.

I'll be vilified if I shoot a film in Toronto for New York. And rightfully so!

If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.

I don't see any negativity with what Brad Pitt is doing with his Make It Right Foundation, or what Sean Penn is trying to do in Haiti.

I don't like to use the word 'remake', I think reinterpretation is a better word. It's just a matter of respecting the source, and then trying to make your own film, and trying not to be inhibited by being so beholden to every single thing... We respect the source, but we make changes to it.