MULTI-OSCAR winning director Spike Lee graced the Red Sea International Film Festival (RedSeaIFF) with his presence.
Known for telling black stories such as Boyz n the Hood, The Best Man, Love And Basketball, and Inside Man, Spike has become the godfather of black cinema all over the world.
He held a session where he spoke about his journey in filmmaking, the current state of cinema and what he’s now working on.
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Speaking about the RedSeaIFF, he said he feels it’s important because it tells stories from different countries.
“Film festivals are very important, because they are international. This is where filmmakers get to share their films with audiences and other countries that might not be aware of their work. Cinema for me is universal, so this festival in important. In years to come, I’ll definitely come back,” he said.
Spike Lee said film has changed a lot since he started as a filmmaker, and he thinks it is revolutionary.
“My generation of filmmakers, we went to film school not to get degrees. We went to get access to the equipment. Coming out of film school, you won’t get a job in film because you have a degree. We didn’t care about it. We went in to get out with a film, to show what we could do,” he said.
“However, now, digital revolution has changed everything. It has brought a great democracy to filmmakers. People are making picture films on their phones and editing on their laptops. That has changed the game. Now, you don’t need to have a lot of money to do a film and that’s revolutionary, I think,” he said.
He said that he’s working on a documentary about football player and American civil rights activist, Colin Kaepernick.
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“I’m working on a multi-series documentary on an American football player. So we’ve been shooting for over a year. This is the seventh year that Colin is not being allowed to play. No team out of the 32 NFL teams has signed him,” he said.
“And six days of the week, he still trains, he’s still waiting for a phone call to be signed. He’s been denied his dream, he’s a stellar quarterback. And because he took a knee to bring awareness to the murder that was happening around the black community in America, he was deemed a pariah,” he said.
