Dee Rees on the renaissance of today's Black female filmmakers
“That multiplicity of voices is the thing that’s exciting. We’re not just this monolithic blackness.”
Last night, the Black Queens came out in full force at the 2018 Golden Globes in Los Angeles. Ava Duvernay, Issa Rae, Mary J. Blige, and Tracee Ellis Ross were among the women perpetuating #BlackExcellence at the show.
But it was Oprah Winfrey’s speech that left so many people across the world enthralled that they began to call for her to run for president in 2020.
She is, of course, at the forefront of a renaissance of Black filmmakers, especially Black female filmmakers rightfully being recognized for bringing stellar content to the masses on screens both big and small.
Director Dee Rees, whose Netflix original film Mudbound was nominated for two Globes last night, says she’s enthused about the evolution.
“To me, the exciting thing about it is that it’s many voices at once,” Rees recently told REVOLT TV while in Los Angeles. “We’ve always been here since Euzhan Palcy (A Dry White Season), since Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou). I think the only difference now [is] instead of one at a time, many voices are allowed to be at once and many voices are allowed to be different. So it’s not like we’re all lumped together and so I think that kind of multiplicity of voices is the thing that’s exciting. We’re not just this monolithic blackness. We’re varied, we’re interesting, we’re different. And you can really then see people’s different tastes, or points of view, or styles. That’s the exciting thing. So I hope it’s not just a fad or trend. And 20 years later, if it’s no longer an interview question then I think we know we’ve really gotten there.”