You may recall that this past September, director Shola Lynch premiered a documentary entitled Free Angela And All Political Prisoners at the Toronto International Film Festival. Produced by Will Smith and Jay-Z, the film tells the story of radical activist Angela Davis. The doc is set to be released nationwide on April 5th. In a new interview with Jay's site Life+Times, Lynch spoke on the films' process:
" It took about a year to talk Angela into it – something close to a year, about 10 months – then you start the fundraising process. It’s funny, when it’s done, people are like, “Oh, that must have been so easy to raise money for, it’s so obvious,” but before the work exists, when it’s paving new territory and this film is – in terms of Angela Davis’, Black Power, the crazy late ’60s-early ’70s, the feeling that the revolution is around the corner – there hasn’t been much work done on that period. So, it was difficult to raise money for."
She also discussed what it was like to work with Davis herself:
" As a director, I was pretty upfront that I have to have creative control [laughs], and she’s an academic, so she understood that. Basically, what she did is she said yes, “I’ll consent to an interview and I will be on board for the project.” That was what she did, she gave me an opportunity and it was up to me to make something of it. So, she didn’t hurt me and she didn’t help me. I now could say, when I talked to other people [that asked], “Are you gonna interview Angela? Is she on board?” Yes. That opened up certain doors. It got me access to her FBI files in a fuller way. Essentially, with her being on board, I got access, but she didn’t say, “talk to this person, do this, here’s my rolodex.” She was not in the editing room. She feels like the film is true to the time."
See the trailer and poster art below & >>>Read more (via L + T)
