Translator: Louise-Marie Six Reviewer: Denise RQ
Could you please pick the odd one out?
It's not difficult, right?
The image you see on the screen represents, some think, a rough idea
of what the British and general film-making industry looks like.
Figures revealed by the Women's Media Center in New York
show that across a five-year period ending in the year 2012,
of the 500 top-grossing movies,
only two of those had Black women directors attached to them.
That's 0.4%.
I'm thinking back now
to the night before I was about to set foot
on the set of my first movie ever to direct.
And I can tell you now: I was absolutely terrified.
My fear pivoted around the fact that I knew
that I wasn't what was expected of a director.
I didn't fit the industry model, full stop.
I wondered how I was going to lead
my all-male crew, and they were also all white,
how I was going to instill confidence in them
and get them to believe in me,
so that I could end up with a film that I had written on screen.
After all, I knew that they had never worked under anyone like me before;
my shape, my flavor.
(Laughter.)
I realized, essentially,
that I knew the very world that I wanted to work in
as one that, statistically, did not include me.
And that society, by its own boundaries and perceptions,
had created me to be somebody that didn't fit into the category
of what film-makers were generally expected to be.
And yet, I felt like a director.
I knew that I could craft stories onscreen
and connect those stories to audiences.
But the figures don't lie,
and the statistics did not tally in my favor.
Essentially, my definition of me didn't match the definition
that society had bestowed upon me.
And so, who wins?
That's what I want to talk to you about, today.
The question of who defines you: society or yourself?
Is society's opinion of who you are, who you can be,
what value you have, what you can achieve in life,
is that more powerful an opinion and important an opinion than your own?
If you say you are a writer,
and you have something valuable to contribute to the literary world?
But reviewers and critic say you're not,
you're not a great writer.
Then whose truth wins?
And whose truth is most likely to determine your future as a writer?
For me, the answer is really simple.
It's whichever you choose to believe.
I have this idea
that since we can all dream a far bigger dream for ourselves
than society could ever indicate for any of us,
what would happen if we all decided we were going to actively define ourselves
and allow that definition to govern everything,
over and above anything that society could define or indicate for any of us?
How would that influence our lives?
The question of who defines us
comes up in everybody's life at some point or another.
It doesn't have to be about race or gender, necessarily.
For me, the question embedded itself long ago.
I grew up down the road from here,
at a time when Brixton was being so negatively defined by society,
and also defined in a way that it didn't authentically see itself,
that it practically imploded on itself, in its struggle to be heard.
With an older brother, at the time, who was still a teenager,
I experienced how it felt for some
that they were living in a police state.
But yet, I also witnessed
how Brixton refused to be marginalized and criminalized,
as it rose up during the riots of the 1980s
and rejected this definition
of the existence it should have
by society's standards.
Defining yourself outside of the realms of society,
it's not easy.
As a writer and director,
it's such an interesting and fascinating subject to me
that it has risen to the fore
of every single project I have ever worked on,
and probably every single project I will ever do.
I think the reason is because it's so complex.
I think what's so hard about it
is to recognize when your choices and your direction in life
are being influenced by society's perhaps more restricted ideas
of who you should be.
When the mirror image of what society is suggesting to you
doesn't reflect the person that you really feel you are.
Or even worse, when the untrue image that's coming back to you
does feel real.
Because the messages and the influence can be so subtle
that it's just easy to dismiss.
"This is just the way things are supposed to be,"
that's what you tell yourself.
You think about how many used that argument
when it came to the transatlantic slave trade,
or against the women who demanded the vote,
or even today, when it comes to gay marriage.
Think of how many institutions I can think of them right now...
And organizations use outdated, antiquated, biased rules
to maintain the status quo; and sometimes, an unjust status quo.
We have been doing this for x and x amount of years,
so we can't change it now,
it's just... it's tradition.
It's a word they like to use: 'tradition.'
For me, I think that it sounds uninvolved
to not move forward because you think something is tradition.
And yet, when society is acting
to prevent you from reaching your goals and your dreams,
I think that's precisely the time you have to truly remember who you are.
The reason why I believe that is because today,
none of use emerge from just one single world.
We are all a combination of many worlds put together.
Sometimes, when you are at the junction of many worlds,
society considers you a contradiction.
Growing up, as I said, down the road from here,
I experienced the common story of constantly being asked,
"Where are you from? Where are you from?"
And I would say, "Well, actually, I was born here in London."
And then I would be harangued.
"No, but where are you really from?"
"What part of 'London' don't you get?"
And then interestingly, I would go back to Ghana
to visit both my grandmothers, with my mother during summer vacation,
and I would be told, "Well, you're not really Ghanaian, are you?
Because you're too English."
It got to the point
where at this junction that I was sitting at,
I didn't know which pathway to go down.
Because, if I took one pathway, it would be rejected,
if I took another pathway, that would be rejected.
It felt like, in many ways, society was defining me as an outsider.
As I say, again, and I'll keep saying it,
this doesn't have to be solely about race or gender.
We're all at the junction of many worlds.
It can be concerning race,
it can be concerning class, sexuality;
so many different things, today.
I don't think... I am wondering, at least,
if there is a person in this room who, at least at some point in their life,
hasn't been identified outside of the realms
of that which they have felt that they would see themselves,
or at some point at least, hasn't felt like an outsider.
For me, I don't think it should be about having to pick one pathway over another.
I shouldn't have to pick being British over being Ghanaian,
or being Ghanaian over being British,
because ultimately, I am a product of both.
Both of those cultures reside inside me.
It shouldn't really matter if that's not normal to society.
For me, it's not so much about a collision of worlds
as it is a combining of worlds.
As I say, it really shouldn't matter
whether society defines it as normal or not,
because as the late Dr. Maya Angelou would say,
"If we are always trying so hard to be normal,
how will we ever know how amazing you can be."
Bringing to bear your definition of yourself in society,
- as I say, I know it can be hard - there are all sorts of things:
beauty ideals, gender expectations for both men and women,
racial profiling, class prejudice;
these are all examples of how we can be thrown off base
in terms of knowing, and understanding, and defining who we know we truly are.
I am thinking now
about the guy who wants to stand in his truth
when it comes to his sexuality,
even though his community or his religion might expect something different of him.
Those who find they define themselves as beautiful,
but society is telling them that they are not.
I think to myself that at those points
exactly when society is telling you you are not who you feel you are,
that's the time, as I say,
you have to understand the power of what it means to define yourself.
How it can mean the difference
between whether you may be happy or less happy in life,
a failure or a success in life,
but most importantly,
conscious or unconscious in the story of your own life.
I think back now to finding my way originally in the business of film,
and being told so often it's very hard
to sell Black movies with a Black protagonist.
There are enough movies today
that have defied that definition and shown that to be untrue.
But regardless of whether that was just opinion, or whether that was perception,
or whether it was truth or not,
I realized that if I was going to move forward in the business,
I was going to have to try and find a way of working out what the obstacles were
and finding a way to negotiate those obstacles.
What I learned is
that when you truly embrace who you are,
and all of the worlds that you come from,
when you bring those sensibilities
to a previously closed off world,
you move society forward.
Because when we move into other worlds, we touch people, we impact people.
And when people change, then society has to, as well.
For me, the value of embracing
all of the worlds that exist in you, and get this,
is that those of us who are able to do that have an insight
that shows us why colliding worlds on the outside are not a bad thing.
Because when worlds meet, progress can follow.
The mother who may run the Fortune 500 company,
the son of a cleaner who becomes a doctor,
or think about the first African-American children
to set foot in the all-white schools after segregation was abolished;
those are all people that inspire me to do what I do.
I'm thinking now about the women who do make their way
in the male-dominated world of film-making.
What we realize about those women
is that when they are able to break into that world,
they make an impact.
The British Film Institute released figures between 2010 and 2012
that show, that although women were still underrepresented
when it came to independent film-making,
they represented a significant figure or percentage
when it came to successful films.
People love their films.
That's what I mean when I say when we have the courage
to move forward into other worlds, we have the impact to change them.
It takes me back to the story that I started with,
stepping onto the set of my first film.
A few weeks before I was about to shoot that movie,
a film executive came up to me and said,
"Well, you're not going to step on set with your big high heels on, are you?"
As if to say me coming on set with high heels was really going to be
the thing that established me as a woman a man's world.
For the record, I don't direct in high heels,
and I didn't direct my first film in high heels,
except from the last day.
I always make that a tradition.
But I did celebrate my love for heels in this way.
I don't know how clear that is for everybody,
but there is essentially a high heel on the name of my company.
That appeared at the end of the movie, and it was the logo for my company.
I believe in leaning in to our identity,
not leaning back.
High heels are definitely a part of my identity.
But you see, I believe the part of me that loves high heels
and loves being a woman is every bit the part of me
that is able to write movies,
direct movies, and deliver movies.
Just as in the way that the part of me where Africa meets Europe
is the thing that gives me my unique, yet universal eye.
I believe every industry, every business, every society
requires fresh eyes to open new windows
on old concepts and unseen worlds,
to bring new perspectives to the universal experience.
The journey for me of defining myself
is an ongoing experience; I work at it every day.
But if you ask me the question today, "Who are you Amma? Where are you from?"
I can tell you this: I am a Black British woman.
I am proudly born of Ghanaian parents.
I am a screenwriter and a movie director.
How will you define you?
Thank you.
(Applause)