Brother, Where Are You?

(Prior to Production)

I wish I could say this film is a simple protest picture, a realization of what it means to be black in this country; to face the continuation of what your. No, it is a bit more complex than all of that; but it is also all of it. No such realization is possible. It is a contained reaction to the very real pain that comes from being forced to be “black” in a part of the world that considers itself “white.” Nobody can tell you exactly what it means to be “black” in every context—there is no universal conception of the idea itself. One only knows what this blackness implies in certain, ahem, spheres. Anyone who does not know cannot really be told. While the incarceration system does not house only Africans in America, the disparities cannot be ignored lest you intend to be rather obtuse—particularly impotent—in any discussion on it. The references to which this film owes its conception hint at something far more overarching. Baldwin is frightening. Interpreting his words, reading them aloud, reveals a great deal about the self—especially if his characters resemble you not only mentally, but physically. This cannot be ignored.

Sonny’s Blues is a story I read in high school three or so years ago. The story has tormented me since; and I had not known, up until now, what to do with this torment. It inspired so much in me; caused me to engage—really engage—with history, with the implications present in our everyday lives. It was the first short story I read that applied so violently to my own life. It articulated something I had never thought of; something I had not considered: the constraints placed around us who simply want to survive. I have faced this world, now, for twenty-one years; but all of those years before it are present within the very manner in which I am forced to navigate it. The world—my “nation”—has not changed very much in this regard. This is obvious in the way so many teachers question the way I present myself, in the way I speak and write. I have gotten the impression, more than once, that my manner disrupts and scatters a great deal for many of their preconceptions. My reading of Baldwin, then engaging in-depth with more literature thereupon, is likely to blame for this confusion. I, like many, have felt that sinking pain when a police officer has pulled you over for reasons they tease in their possession. The story also highlights how wretched a condition it is, to simply be seeking to survive. We must also acknowledge the power of Ghassan Kanafani’s Letter From Gaza; and its power comes precisely from the similarities of the predicaments, so geographically removed from one another. We invoke these great works, we bring them to the cinema. I can say little more at this moment than what I offer below, my breakdown of the material.

In the end, we will make this film and it will be special. It will make a great deal of sense for me, though the thought is daunting, to say the least.