Adisa, Filmmaker: So nobody knew what I had. All I knew is I had multiple organ failure and my body
was shutting down and this one particular doctor stayed with me and he
had to restart my heart three times in the middle of the night and so you know
it was...it looked like I was on my deathbed
was about what 10 years ago you had something that happened that your heart
stops yeah doing research I went 10 years ago I went to Sierra Leone with
Isaiah Washington on a documentary film shoot and on that shoot that she
literally would changed my life no only did I get exposed to Sierra
Leone and the conditions over they because they had just undergone a civil
war and Isaiah was looking up his roots and I was part of the documentary team I
had a great experience but when I came back I had a near-death experience
because I cotton virus over there called the hantavirus and when I got back to LA
I mean I was just I was just fatally ill and I had me rushed to the hospital I
was in ICU and my heart stopped beating three times I had multiple organ failure
and I was in really bad shape and the doctors didn't think I was gonna make it
nobody thought I was gonna make it so my mother at that time flew up here and
people was just praying I mean I was just in critical condition and but
miraculously I made it through yeah I made it through did they know what it
wasn't they didn't at the time they didn't and it was a good thing that I
was at what they called I was a Danny Freeman more hospital and they well
thank God you didn't go to select cedar cyanide because the Daniel Freeman
Hospital they could bring in other technicians from everywhere like he
could bring in people from UCLA they could bring in doctors from USC too to
help on my case right where's I've been Cedars they have like clear rules about
cedars-sinai doctors working there and you can't bring others in but because I
was at Daniel Freeman Hospital they were able to bring another doctors
so nobody knew what I had all I knew is I had multiple organ failure and my body
was shutting down and this one particular doctor stayed with me and he
had to restart my heart three times in the middle of the night and so ya know
it was it looked like I was on my deathbed it looked like I was on my dick
and actually I thought I was on my deathbed too the only thing kept me
going was the fact that because I had one morning at one point I remember
myself making sort of this resolve hit like you know what I'm gonna if I'm at
my last moments were in Africa my last moments were playing with children my
last moments were with like you know having fun and he's sharing of my gifts
with everybody that's where that's what I was doing in Africa giving out soccer
balls and I had made some serious relate some nice relationships over there so I
says you know what if I gotta go then so be it
I had made up I had made peace with it you know and but it was another plan for
me it was another plan I'm here and how long were you in the hospital I was
there for about I was probably there for about seven to eight weeks total
but for like three weeks I was sedated and I was under heavy sedation as
doctors treated me and put me on dialysis and we just you know trying
everything to fix me trying everything to make me better but nothing worked and
they didn't know so they said they just had to let it run its course
and just let me be you know just let me be on sort of getting let my body fight
it and so yeah so then when you returned home did you have any kind of like
awakening we're like okay now because I've been to this point where most
people haven't been there or they danced oh yeah oh yeah things are gonna be
different now oh yeah yeah yeah much so that what happened was when I got back
and I've gotten well I shocked everybody because I told my mother I want to go
back to Africa you all know you can't go back there no no you're not gonna do
that to me yeah my mother's beside itself my father
everybody tripped out I mean they were like no you can't go back because I got
an opportunity to go back with was it Regina Kane yeah Regina King the actress
had invited me to go back and work with her on her documentary and so they were
like no you can't go back you can't go but especially we went back to Sierra
Leone the same place and so paper will freak it out like freaking out and but I
was resolved I was like you know what I'm better I can do this and I wanted to
do this I wanted to be there was some things that had happened to me by being
sick you know like I was having revelations around my life and what I
wanted to do with my life and and how I wanted to show up and so yeah and going
back to Africa was part of it so even in your like what I mean when you were
conscious but laying in this bed or whenever you knew like yeah yeah if I
got better I knew I wanted to go back and I did go back and and not only did I
go back I started the foundation of an aza foundation not only did I go back I
had a soccer tournament we would do every year and we would put kids through
school we had foundation for that I mean I was like he was working to get the
kids out of the diamond mines I was very active still am mm-hmm and did you
finish that documentary about it I did yeah and the document and then then I
shot a documentary on it me going back and so the documentary captures me going
back hosting the soccer tournament giving the kids money for school and
giving a look at what the kids were doing in the diamond mines yeah and
these are miners there he was a young miners X 7 years old and 14 Mohammad and
Musa yeah I mean they're older now but yeah yeah and so that was a really
powerful thing for me and that's actually started the ball rolling with
my film career again because almost I get that documentary I was just hungry
and wanted to do a feature right so then what I did was I wrote a feature based
on my experience or rebirth experience buckle in Africa and this trauma that
was experiencing it was a retreat life story although I substituted myself for
a football player I made a little bit more commercial and we spent I spent a
lot of years trying to get that going I couldn't get it going and then after a
number of years I just thought you know I got it I got to work on it because I
could reach the financing so I said let me work on a project that I can do this
doable something that is it's not gonna cost a lot of money and I just happen to
be able to open at the time and in my sister was talking about how she
wouldn't let her young daughter ride the bus I said watch but your daughter ride
the bus and why are you driving around everywhere because that wasn't my
experience growing up and she said with the gorilla pimps up here and just
recently there was a gorilla pimp which snatched a girl off the bus and put her
into prostitution I was like whoa really and so that stuck
with me that stuck with me and in the midst of that I'm looking for my next
subject matter in terms of my film then I came back up to Oh came back up to LA
on the newscast that exact same week that was talking about a young girl who
was prostituting herself on Long Beach Boulevard and I was like a while so I
just couldn't ignore those two sort of circumstances or two instances of
prostitution and trafficking that came by and at the time I didn't know it was
called trafficking I was just like prostitution prostitution
it wasn't until I would read it later that I would say oh there the one in the
same prostitution trafficking these girls
don't want to do it some of them are being manipulated coerced you know or
and that's how and I just start to research it heavily and then started to
think about what a film could look like just curious do people notice that you
had changed in that you had gone through where you you face death and then when
they saw you again after maybe a year later they notice your personality was
different or oh and then you had a news or purpose or um I think the light had
turned on more I'm not gonna say it was completely different I mean I was like I
was already like a very positive optimistic person wanting to do things
but I was probably stopping myself like the the tournament in Africa and working
with the kids I never thought I could do that you know like there was something
about the way I was living life that I felt like that was larger than what I
could do right and so I started to so yes to ask you a question once I got
better I said they're tested boundaries more like around greatness enlarged
nough sand saying that I can do it I can do that why not right and so yeah in
that way and then having to experience death also I mean it just gives you this
sense of I'm not seeing immortality but you to experience and be that close to
death and to know that it can be snapped away from you at an instant it kind of
sharpened my focus about living life in the present moment to moment and doing
as much as I can in that moment and that was in 2009 yeah so do you notice that a
trajectory of what you've done like if you saw like a timeline yeah yeah yeah
yeah yes from the documentary to the the
trafficking movie when I skin in the game we're gonna talk about shortly
yeah yeah and then you know but along that we just have to realize that it
just takes a lot to make it in film I mean it's not like and they'd be talking
on overnight successes 18 years you know somebody said oh yeah you made it man
you over and it's been working at over 12 years 13 years you know some cases 20
years um you know you never see a young Morgan Freeman on the screen I mean like
can you imagine a young what would a young Morgan Freeman look like you know
you've seen him in this 40 I mean when he did glory and all that
he's already older it's like my recent like in his 40s but what is a younger
one look like you know it was a lecture company you know but so I say that to
say that you know it was happening for me but nothing happens overnight and so
it was just a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication a lot of time did you
think before that it was possible to be this over like when you were leaving
Tisch did you think you know what you know like because I think people don't
realize sometimes how long yeah yeah I know
I mean who told me when I graduated that it was gonna take 15 years to do a
feature I've been like no I've been like you're kidding you know you out of your
mind I would be more like that right and so no I mean I thought I was gonna
happen right away and then I got you know I got hit in the face with reality
show making what it really takes and not only David sometimes it just takes a lot
of lot the day's a lot of being in the right place at the right time so and
sometimes it just takes what it takes sometimes it's just it took me I have I
had to say what I want to do any of it over no because you know if I had made
it right out of film school I probably wouldn't go on the Sierra Leone right I
wouldn't have been gone I wouldn't have been a sound man so I wouldn't gone over
there what Isaiah Washington I I wouldn't have started a foundation so my
life probably would have been on another trajectory so I don't have any regrets
it happened the way it happened I embraced that yeah and and to answer
your question about just being stronger yes so the experience made me stronger
and it challenged me to be better
you