Roger Ross Williams Quotes

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Film has to reflect the real world.

My father was a religious leader in the community, and my sister is a pastor.

When I visited Africa to make my film 'Music by Prudence,' I was struck by how intensely religious and socially conservative Africans were. There was literally a church on every corner.

The more I learned about religion in Africa, the more intrigued I became. It was as if the continent was gripped with religious fervor. And the center of it was Uganda.

Hollywood has to diversify.

The Academy just reflects Hollywood. And until we break those barriers, until we have African-American or minority studio executives, 'til we have people who are greenlighting movies with African-American actors - the Academy is not going to change until Hollywood changes, so we have to start with Hollywood.

I think we have to work with Hollywood. We have to work in the system and change it.

I came from a very poor family. And I was able to rise up and actually win an Academy Award. And if I can do it, then any kid can do it.

'God Loves Uganda' is a powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to change African culture with values imported from America's Christian Right. The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting 'sexual immorality' and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow Biblical law.

While shooting in Uganda in 2011, the conservative evangelical pastors I was filming - the most ardent supporters of the country's now infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill - discovered that I myself am gay.

I had my own Land of Lost Sidekicks, where I pretended I lived in Paris with my best friend, a little cowboy based on a Marky Maypo doll.

The establishment wants to connect with people who are like them, and I wasn't. I'm a black gay man from a poor working-class family. Most of the people who look like me are in prison.

I escaped my destiny. The odds were that I would end up in prison, but I didn't.

Often, films about people with disabilities are from the outside looking in.

I didn't have a lot of exposure to films as a kid, and I never went to the cinema. I had a single mom who just planted me in front of the television. But while growing up, I lived in my own fantasy world.

I had kind of a rough childhood, so I created my own reality.

The relationship between a director and an editor in documentaries is so important.

I will always make films that champion outsiders, because I still feel like one, even though I'm now governor of the documentary branch of the Academy.

I can't believe that I'm sitting in meetings with Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Annette Bening. I want to take on that responsibility to represent all the Rogers out there who don't have a seat at the table. People of colour were not at the table, and now I am there, I want to change things.

All too often, white documentary filmmakers are the ones telling the stories of people of color.

While the documentary community is way ahead of Hollywood, it is still nowhere near where it needs to be. Filmmakers of color rarely get hired by the powerful production companies, and they are not getting supported enough by broadcasters and funders to tell their own stories.

When I was in high school, I felt totally alienated from the world, but I loved movies. They were my escape, but coming from a disadvantaged community, I never knew that filmmaking was an option for me. A program like School of Doc would have been a game-changer.

Lack of diversity in Hollywood has been well documented thanks to #OscarSoWhite, but lack of diversity in the documentary world is less talked about.

The long journey I've taken from where I started, and to end up at the Governors Awards as a governor - it was an emotional and powerful moment for me.

Wiseman's films are some of the most pure cinema, and to take a journey in a Wiseman film is like no other. He's been doing it so long, with a body of over 40 films!

Don't boycott the Oscars. Staying away from something that needs to change is no way to change it. Instead, let's help them lead the way in promoting diversity in Hollywood.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that it has been troubling for me to work within an institution that does not seem to recognize that I am a statistic.

Why should someone be allowed to remain a voting member of the Academy if they are no longer active in the industry?

There are simply too many Academy members who were voted in during a less inclusive era and still remain a large voting bloc even though they haven't worked in the field for decades.

Everyone has relationships. Breakups are hard. Everyone graduates from school.

When I was filming 'Prudence' in Zimbabwe, I noticed the hold fundamentalist Christianity had on sub-Saharan Africa. So I thought I'd like to make a film about religion in Africa because the prosperity gospel is big business where people are desperate, poor, and sick.

My mother worked as a maid, cleaning the fraternity dorm of the local college.

I never watched much TV at home - it just wasn't part of our home culture.

I grew up poor, black, and working class.

I just didn't realize the unbelievable impact Disney films had on American society until my assistant coached me on the stories and brought me up to speed.

The first time I saw the Dutch character known as Black Pete, or Zwarte Piet, my heart sank, and I felt a little nauseated.

When I decided to make 'Blackface,' a short film about Black Pete, I had little knowledge of the giant cesspool of hate I was about to dive into. I didn't realize how popular and passionate many white Dutch are about a figure that they connect to fond memories from their childhood.

All racism is wrong, and denying that it exists does not make it go away.

I'm definitely drawn to stories about outsiders. Feeling like that myself as a gay black man, I often seek to give a voice to those in the world who don't have one.

I want to look at the community I came from and what role incarceration has played there.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist-style church with a choir, a band, and music, but I've been asking myself my whole life, 'Why is my own church, my own community, rejecting me because of my sexuality?'

Imagine that you're a gay man, and you're spending all your time with people who believe you are possessed by the devil. Or, in the case of a lot of Ugandans, with people who believe you should be killed. Someone told me once that I'm worse than a dog, I'm the scum of the earth, so for me, it was draining.

What is so attractive about Uganda for missionaries is that they have free rein. They can go anywhere they please - schools, hospitals, the parliament.

Gay Africans must speak up and let everyone know they are there, they have always been there, and that they are not going away.

I went to church every Sunday and sang in the choir. But for all that the church gave me - for all that it represented belonging, love and community - it also shut its doors to me as a gay person. That experience left me with the lifelong desire to explore the power of religion to transform lives or destroy them.

The American evangelical movement in Africa does valuable work in helping the poor.

It is important for American congregations to hold their churches accountable for what their money does in Africa.

I'm a recovering journalist, I should say.

I love 'Jungle Book' and all the classics growing up, but what I learned about this is that these Disney films are basically classic fables that have been told for thousands of years.

All the politicians in Uganda play to their fundamentalist benefactors in America because of the flow of money.

Expectations that black directors have to make black films about black subject matter are, to me, kind of absurd.

As a film-maker, I certainly don't want to be put into some box.

Even after I won the Oscar, my phone did not ring. No one called me to fund films or offer projects.

I felt like I was an outsider growing up in the black church, as a gay man, in a poor community.

I began filming 'God Loves Uganda' by first meeting some of the Ugandan and American missionaries who have helped create Uganda's evangelical movement. They were often large-hearted. They were passionate and committed.

The war against homosexuality in Uganda is fueled by the funds of American Christian missionary churches.

I grew up in the church, and I went into the production of 'God Loves Uganda' intending to raise awareness of the abuse of religious power in Uganda, and after 30 public appearances, I have learned a lot about how people receive this sort of message.

I have learned that the hardest part of campaigning for tolerance and justice is encouraging people to look at their own selves, to examine their own identity and shortcomings.

I made a film about a person living with a disability. Those kinds of films are often about the disability, not who a person is.

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