25 Years After a Breakthrough at Sundance, Trying to Break Through Again

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/movies/leslie-harris-sundance-interview.html

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PARK CITY, Utah — In 1993, the writer-director Leslie Harris brought her first film, “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.,” to Sundance. Focusing on Chantel (Ariyan Johnson), a headstrong, smart Brooklyn teenager, it won a special jury prize and landed a distribution deal. “Just Another Girl” was a rare thing then: a film written, directed and co-produced by a black woman, with a young black woman at the center of its story. Turns out it’s still a rare thing now.

This year at the festival, which runs through Jan. 28, the program Women at Sundance is acknowledging Ms. Harris on the 25th anniversary of the movie. Ms. Harris has yet to make another feature, though not for lack of trying. In an interview mid-festival, the filmmaker (whose husband is a photographer for The New York Times) discussed how she got her small movie made, the current climate of independent filmmaking and why it has been so difficult to make a follow-up. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

In the end credits of “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.,” you dubbed it “A Film Hollywood Dared Not Do.” Could you talk about what the filmmaking climate was like when you decided to make this?

At the time, it was all about “Boyz N the Hood,” “Juice,” “Hangin’ With the Homeboys.” It was all male-centric. Those movies gave me the impetus to write a contemporary film from a black woman’s point of view. But it’s interesting because even now I have a fan base. Young people love the movie and I get tweets about it. They’ve seen it on Amazon or Netflix.

What are new fans responding to?

They like that she was rocking the natural hair, the Senegalese twist. She was very political and stood up for herself and for injustice. She’s not silent, she’s not just the girlfriend, the mother, the daughter. I wanted her to have a full-fledged life herself.

Did you feel like you were breaking ground when you made it?

I do feel like it was maybe a little bit ahead of its time. It was difficult just to get a black woman on the poster by herself.

How does it feel to be back at Sundance?

I feel like this is the place to be right now because there’s change.

Were there movies you had seen that represented your experience before you decided to make your film?

I’m a fan of Gordon Parks and I thought “The Learning Tree” was a great coming-of-age story. But I love Diana Ross in “Lady Sings the Blues” because that was her story. It wasn’t an ensemble piece.

I studied film in France and I’m a big international film buff. I love Godard, Ousmane Sembène, Mizoguchi. These filmmakers often focused on a woman’s story. Also Spike’s film “She’s Gotta Have It.” I liked that it was about one woman’s journey. But, it was from a male’s point of view. Still good though.

So you’re saying that although Spike Lee’s film stars a woman character, you feel the character is written more like how a man would see her?

Yep.

How did you get your movie made?

I actually submitted my script to some of the mini majors [studio divisions]. One person said, “We love the script, we think it’s great. But could you make her boyfriend, Tyrone, a drug dealer?” I said no, I wouldn’t change it. So I ended up starting a company and raising money myself through grants.

But we ran out of money in post. I sent a script to the writer Terry McMillan. She sent a check to help. Also Michael Moore saw a rough cut of the film and he helped, too.

In 2015, you asked Michael Moore a question during a Q&A at the New York Film Festival and offered him a role in your next movie.

And he said yes.

You also asked him about what the mostly male, white Hollywood execs could do to help open doors for more people of color.

Yes, and I’m glad I spoke up. I don’t know if this had anything to do with it, but it was the next year that Ava DuVernay’s movie opened the New York Film Festival.

What’s happening with the film you said you’d give Michael Moore a role in?

We’re still trying to get financing. It’s still rare to have a black director, writer and producer making a film with a black lead female character. This one is about a cinema professor. It’s called “I Love Cinema.”

Has this been the case ever since “Just Another Girl?”

Yes. After I did that movie, I wrote several screenplays but little happened. I did a short for Showtime about Bessie Coleman, the first African-American pilot. I went around pitching that for a feature and people would say, the story’s not that important. I wrote a movie about a female hip-hop artist. People said they loved the script, but I couldn’t get that financed. I tend to write films that deal with one black woman’s story. That’s where it becomes a little tricky in the film industry. And I think it does a disservice to the black women who aren’t getting that kind of role.

How do you think more change will happen?

Well I think art really reflects our society. And maybe now with more women speaking up and having their voices be heard, we can see a shift. Maybe if we had more black executives, they would see the importance of these stories. I mean, how can you not do a film about Bessie Coleman?