Documenting Michelle Parkerson | Q&A with Michelle Parkerson, Christopher Prince

All right, good evening everyone. Thank you so much for coming out. It's great to see you all here at the Wilder. My name is Bandrea July and I'm a film programmer here at the archive and I am so excited to have you here tonight for documenting Michelle Parkerson. Yes. Um, so I want to just handle a little business up front and just say that tonight's uh free screening, all of our screenings are free. Um, our year-round public program programming is generously supported by an anonymous donor and our partners here at the Hammer Museum. So, we thank them and we also thank our community partners for this particular weekend, Black Women Directors and Queer Film Los Angeles. Um, I also want to thank the archive staff. Truly, we have such a great team here. I really um want to say thank you to uh Lauren Brown, our theater manager, um in the booth, Alex um our wonderful projectionist, and our programming coordinator, Nicole Usedu, as well as our as well as our student theater staff. Uh let's give them a round of applause. And um this is a twoight program. So tonight is the first night and tomorrow night um just to give you a heads up, we are showing uh three more of Michelle's films. um uh a sci-fi short as well as um a historical documentary about the jewelbox, a review performer Stormmy Dabier, and uh my personal favorite, the um a litany for survival, the life and work of Audrey Lord, which is just a really special documentary. So, if you want to come back tomorrow, we'll be here and tell your friends. Um, okay. So, um, to introduce tonight's films, I want to just start with, um, you know, when I started this job back in September. So, I'm I'm in like month fiveish of this job here at UCLA. And my, uh, colleague, the television creator Mark Quigley said to me when like the first week I was here, he said like, "Programming is about following your heart." And I just was really taken by that because it was like not what I was expecting him to say about programming. Um, but I found it to be really helpful advice. And so when I thought about the programs that I wanted to present here, I really just tried to follow my heart. And Michelle Parkerson was one of the first filmmakers um who came to mind. Um, my connection to her work began over 20 years ago when I was a college student in Philadelphia. a filmmaker friend um spoke of her with such a deep reverence that it really made an impression on me. She was like, "You really need to seek out Michelle's films and know about her. She's an important filmmaker." And that stayed with me all these years later. And I'm so grateful that I have the privilege to bring her here and um present her work to you all. It's hard to sum up Michelle's films, but if I had to do it, I would say they all radiate a sense of freedom and an unapologetic pursuit of ideas. Um, she was celebrated by Greg Tate, u, the late Greg Tate and the Village Voice and has been considered part of the 1980s quote new black cinema movement. Uh, her work really rejects Hollywood stereotypes and tells authentic black stories. She's primarily worked in documentary um capturing the lives of women who define success of black women who define success on their own terms. Her student academy award-winning short Sojourn um from 1973 was shot in Philadelphia where she studied at Temple University. And Michelle's contributions to cinema have been widely recognized. She's received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, among others. And her most recent film, um, which just premiered at DOCNYC, um, Camille A. Brown, Giant Steps, about the choreographer Camille Brown, was nominated for a 2025 NAACP image award for outstanding documentary short. And um there's a filmmaker and a researcher named Yvonne Welbin that some of you might know who's out of Chicago. Um yes, clap for clap for Ivonne. Um and she has this phrase where she's she called Michelle our spikely. Um a trailblazing black lesbian filmmaker who has inspired an entire generation. According to Wellbin's 2018 research in the book Sisters in the Life: A History of Out African-American Lesbian Media Making, about a 100 feature films have been directed by black women since 1922, roughly, and nearly a third of that number are by black lesbians. Yet, their work has largely existed outside the Hollywood system, often seen only in film festivals, academia, hello, or grassroots networks. It wasn't until the film Pariah in 2011 by D Ree that a Hollywood studio released a film about a black lesbian woman in theaters nationwide for the first time. So um tonight's program we will watch three films. One the first one is a recent film of uh Michelle's called Fierceness Served the Anika Ali Coffee House um which came out in 2021. Um, those of you who know me know I love to tell you all the run times. Uh, it's 21 minutes. Um, well, actually it's a little bit longer than that, but Oh, yeah. There you go. Thank you. Um, it's about 35 minutes. Sorry, had that wrong. Um, but it's about the vital black LGBTQ arts community in 1980s DC. It's a really special film, so you guys are lucky to be here and see it tonight. And then we'll show a documentary uh feature-like documentary that's um 53 minutes called But Then She's Betty Carter, which is an intimate portrait of the legendary jazz singer. Um and then after that, we'll have a Q&A with Michelle and um Christopher Prince who is in Fierceness Served and one of the collaborators on it. And then we'll close with another one of my personal favorites of Michelle's, which is Got to Make This Journey: Sweet Honey and the Rock, which Michelle produced. Um, which is just such a rousing documentary, and you'll see it feels really timely to what's going on today. Um, and I want to close my remarks with this quote from cultural critic Angel Angelica Jade Bastian, um, who writes for Vulture. And I found this review that she did of odds odds and ends, a film that we'll show tomorrow night. But she said about Michelle, what would American film like if voices like Michelle Parkerson's had been fully supported? And that question was also on my heart when curating this program. I wanted to honor Michelle's long overlooked legacy, celebrate her five decade career, and remind everyone that she's actually not done yet. Um, and you can still support her. um she's still making the film she cares about and she remains worthy of our support. So, thank you again for coming out tonight and uh enjoy the films. I'll see you back here for the Q&A. Christopher Prince, he served as the project director for the documentary Fierce uh Fierceness Served, the Anika Alley Coffee House. He's a native Washingtonian and a multi-talented singer, actor, and activist as well as writer. His poetry has been published in several literary publications including the Baltimore Sun, Haki, Mabbouti, Black Books, Bulletin, and Callaloo, a journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters. And he's also sung at numerous jazz venues, festivals, and concert halls. Among these are the legendary Blues Alley, the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, and the Sam Remo Jazz Festival in Italy. And as the act as an actor, he's one of the voices of the now iconic Brother Coral Sequence in Marlon Riggs award-winning documentary Tongues Untied. In 2024, Chris was awarded a DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship. Please welcome Christopher Prince to the stage. And um I already kind of told you about Michelle, so I'm just going to bring her up. Let's bring up Michelle Parkerson. The Michelle Parkerson. All right. Well, I guess I'll just start with the obvious. Welcome. It's It's really great to have you here. Um, I don't know if you guys know, but Michelle lives in DC, so she flew here um yesterday and um as well as Christopher. And um it's just great to have been planning this and see them here. Um it's like, oh, the emails come to life. Um um but I want to start with let's start with with Betty Carter. Um she's Betty Carter. I mean, what's it like for you to see this was a film you made in your 20s. This is like your first featurelength doc, right? >> Yeah. >> So, what's it like for you to see this now after all these years? >> Yeah. It's almost almost 50 years now. It's crazy. >> Wow. >> What is enduring is Betty Carter's music. It has me popping every time I get the opportunity to see this film. You know, I see of course as a filmmaker and a young filmmaker at that, how blessed we were to get funding to do this and also all of the people who invested in this film, their time, the production crew, the editor who was incredible. Jim Brown was an incredible editor. I don't know if any of you remember W NET back in the day, but uh Black Journal came out of that >> and uh Jim was the editor for that show uh for many decades and he was teaching at Howard at the time and uh he came on to the project you know everybody really hooked in because of Betty really. I mean they invested in well what is this young woman going to do and how's she going to do cuz she's 20some and um it evolved because of God who is listed in the credits um along with parents who were phenomenal in their love and investment >> and so how did you know Betty Carter is this you know well-known artist you're this young filmmaker um how did you connect with her and get convince her to sit for a documentary with you. >> Well, I was raised on jazz. I have my father to thank for that and my mother to some extent. But, you know, he knew a lot of the jazz musicians, particularly those that came out of Washington like um oh there was so many keer betts bases. Uh they would all be coming through lots of jazz musicians would be coming through Washington. They all knew him. and he would take me out to the clubs. So, I grew up on jazz and Mottown came a little later in my trajectory uh as a teenager. So, Betty was one of those voices I heard who was just incredible. How can how can any one person do that? The timing, the beauty, the narrative that she would tell with her voice, extension of cords. And so um I just thought when I went to film school at Temple University in Philadelphia and uh I said you know what this will make a really good film as I was learning film and I had just done one film which was so darn thank you for bringing that up from 1973 and um forgive my mouth I'm having extensive decental architecture so you will see me hide behind this mask extensively Um, so you won't see what's not yet done. Um, but in any event, it was just a vibe and it was like, nobody's doing this. And so, okay, Michelle, you want to make films? Go ahead, baby. Try this. I went to a show. She's in Philly. I had written a treatment so she could read my idea of how the film would look. And Betty was a great advocate of young creative energy. As you notice in her bands, there's always young people who are the musicians behind her. She fostered a program called Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead, which was a summer program for young people in Brooklyn, which is where she lived, and is now a institution in the Kennedy C Center's jazz program now for 15 20 years. They took it over after her death and have just expanded it internationally. So I think she saw this young woman half crazed and still vibing from, you know, the Singapore Sling and her music. And I'm like, you know, I want to do a film on you and you read this and when you can call me back when you feel about it and let me know what you think. And I'm halfway out the door. And she said, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me take a look. Let me see how I feel about it. and she I will call you back and she did and so it began. >> Well any you know filmmakers in the audience she just gave you a little master class there of like be prepared come with your treatment or whatever the appropriate thing is and you know be confident approach and you never know what can happen. So um that's incredible. No. Did you know um and I want to bring you in Christopher, I just want to ask one more question about Betty. I saw you also were really enjoying the film, so feel free to chime in. Um I mean, one vocalist to another. Um uh did you know right away you wanted it to be kind of like at its heart a concert film and then bring in the um you know the interview portion around build that around the concert? How did that evolve for you, Michelle? Uh yeah, I knew that people lots of people didn't know Betty Car's music, but many many many people internationally knew it and that's what they would draw them in to see what she was like as a person. What were her opinions? Feminism was just beginning to crackle around the world and how she interpreted that with her whole life. The way she handled her music, the way she created her own recording company. I said, you know, this brings together so many things. And I was just honored when she said yes. And um bore with a young filmmaker. This second film this was and a tremendous lift financially uh finding the money um getting lots of licenses and clearances and producing it as well and learning my trade through this. Um, and I see all of I It was a great classroom, which sometimes make me go like this when I see it um today. But, uh, Betty's music and the soundtrack for the film are the things that still alive for me from 1980. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's why I wanted to start with um, Fierceness Served and then kind of go back to where you started because I think it's important for people to see the evolution of a filmmaker and that you know they're constantly changing and evolving as you have over your long career. Um, I also noticed so with Betty, you were working on a team obviously of filmmakers, but you were the central director. And as you went along in your career, you really kind of gravitated towards projects where you were in collaboration as a director um, more particularly and Fierceness served as the latest example of that. Um, and so Christopher, I wonder if you could tell me how did you over dinner I tried to get to locate when did you two meet? Was it at the coffee house? And they couldn't quite remember exactly when it was. Um, but um, Christopher, how did you become involved in the fierceness served project and and come aboard as project director? Well, business serve started as a need to be recognized. Um, there is a National Gallery of Art in DC was doing a series of talks on a space in that used to be in downtown DC called the DC space. It was a music space. It was a cabaret space. It had a second floor art gallery. Many of us hung out there, created there. But when the National Gallery of Art were doing a series of lectures, our story was left out. So one of um our dear friends Wson Jones attended one of the lectures and there were a series of four lectures. Okay. >> And Way was the gentleman at the very beginning. >> The very beginning, right? He the guy you saw at the very start of the of the film. Thank you. Mhm. >> I went to the second one and the third one and still we didn't show up. So we're like, okay, this can't be, you know, we were a vital part of this space and we need to tell our own story. We sought a grant through DC um humanities council to talk about the coffee house which was the precursor for us moving into DC space. And that's how the idea started. It was a collective energy. Um, I ended up in a role because my friends suggested I become project manager for the piece. It really was not my idea. I was not really trying to talk about heavy lift. I was not really trying to do that, but they talked me into taking on that role. And uh, there we have it. It was very much a collaborative effort um, in steering the piece. uh knowing that once we constructed the car and put it on the road that we lay out that we'd have an excellent driver, Michelle Parkinson, to steer the piece and get it to where it needed to be. >> Great. Cloud for that. you can cover that. Um, yeah, I think that it's really I think it's really striking that you have this collaborative model because I think we're seeing it more now, but I don't know that it's something that's very common or that, you know, we have this idea of like the aur is very lionized um when it comes to film. And one of the hallmarks of your career, I think, Michelle, is that you really embrace collaboration and it's not necessarily about, you know, you're the only person guiding the vision of the thing. Why is collaboration so important to you and how has it benefited your filmm? Well, I think as my producer that I worked on the latest project, which I talk about a little later, which will be on air in April on PBS American Masters, is she says to me all the time, particularly when numbers don't match on the budget, etc., etc., teamwork makes the dream work. And that was though I couldn't articulate it, she beautifully articulates why I like working in collaborations. Folks lend their visions and energies to a thing and make it so much better and make it so you discover things in what is your project if you were ur and that's why >> right >> collaboration to me is so necessary. Uh it's also a political concern as well when you look about how you make films, the politics of making movies. That was important. And with the coffee house, this was really illustrated because we were a community. And so we had to have a steering committee of five and we met every Sunday for four hours on Zoom to go over the the nitpicking, the writing of grants, the going over the budgets, the who's in, who's out, who's missing, um where the archival is, who has any, who knows who knows where the archival is. Um it was a collaborative experience and to that extent I think we tried to make the movie in that same spirit of creativity. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I mean speaking of the archival in fierceness served, I just one of the most special things to me about that documentary is just the opportunity to just gaze upon all these faces um from that time period and then you bring in what some folks are looking like today and just that interplay between the images and all the group pictures and it's just really rich um archival and um >> an excellent photography. Charles Stick, Lee Mosley, >> Sharon Farmer. >> Yeah. Yeah. And so I guess I just wondered if you could talk about bringing the archival together. Did you like was that sort of like the first thing you did and you kind of built the film around that or how did that work? No, I think we built the film well as there was also a advisory committee that we had which was a group of about 10 people >> 10 or 12 people >> 10 or 12 people that we had to start collecting stories who knew who was at the crux of things who was important to bring out. Then it was whether we had the archival materials to support the stories. It wasn't so much that we used the archival stuff as a basis because sadly a lot of stuff wasn't this was pre-digital. So a lot of stuff we just did not have. And for that coffee house experience we were in the moment. We were creating art. We were not so concerned with capturing n with no sense of it of its historic importance. or anything like that. We were doing the work. So for a lot of things, there was nothing to there was nothing there. So once we kind of started stitching the story together and finding out what we had to substantiate the story and Michelle was very clear that she did not want the film to be a series of talking heads. So it really took some work of going over people's houses, seeing who had what in what kind of box, whether that stuff was still in good shape, right, to be to be filmed, you know? it might have wasn't dust and just you know what was there so then we kind of had to build from that so it was kind of the opposite of what you thought >> right right and I think it's important for people to know that um this film was made during COVID you probably got some hints of that from some of the images you saw and I believe you had was it eight months to complete it so it was a pretty tight timeline >> it was a tight timeline again uh some of the constrictions of the grant making or the grants received. You know, they had to have the film by X date. It could not be longer than I think was 40 minutes. Um, we could only, you know, we did not raise all of the money we needed, but we got a couple of additional grants supporting it. And so with that and the large uh first money from Humanities DC, we forged ahead because we had to deliver, you know, it was a deliverable that had to hit the mark by I think it was May >> of 2021. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Um, and speaking of money, you know, another thing I've noticed about your career is you've done a lot with PBS or CPB, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and you've had this way of securing funding where you could find it and then figuring out how to make your vision inside of that. Um, and I wonder if you could talk about, um, I've heard you say it like pivoting, right? like, you know, you wanted to make an hour-long feature about the coffee house, but the funding didn't materialize, and so you made what you could with what you had. And I wonder if you could talk about that process of like being flexible or being adaptable, but not sacrificing your artistic vision. >> I think it's called rejiggering. you you have to know that the artistic vision isn't sac sacrosanked uh and you have to go with what's available to you if you want to get it out to the people with because you know there's so many steps of things the production then there's the distribution and the exhibition of things you got festivals you want to hit certain things in a certain pattern you want to then be able to either at some film festivals like Sundance when when you come tomorrow and see the Audrey Lord film, we got you know even though it had distributors that were in the waiting which was third world news reel which funded to a large extent the context and production of a litany for survival. Lots of distributors come to these major festivals to find out what's new, what's fresh, what's making awards and asking those filmmakers to distribute the work. So we're trying to hit marks uh in a way as well as you know deliverables based on the grant money received. >> Yeah. And I wonder if um I think this is kind of a hard question but also like not a hard question which is you know if you could wave a magic wand at this moment in time and um you know whatever you said hap could happen what would you do now? I would follow you to the ends of the earth for you to hand me that wand and show me how to do that stuff. Um, what I would do now I, you know, as I get in my third age here at 72, you begin to look at that bucket list and the one thing that I really want to do is a featurelength narrative. Um, there are a couple of ideas, but one in particular I think is closer to reality than others. Thank you for asking. >> Yeah, >> beyond real. Thank you. >> Um, they say you have to, you know, put it out into the universe, right? >> Very good. >> Mixed results on that. Um, okay. I just want to ask some questions about >> But I like that magic wand idea a lot. >> Yeah. >> You know, like make it happen. >> Make it happen. That's right. Um, this is solely for me because we haven't seen God make this journey yet, but for those of you who stay for that, I think you'll like hearing about this. So, this is what I this is like totally Beyondrea like intuitive thing. >> So, your credit as a producer on Got to Make This Journey. Um, which if you don't know is the documentary about Sweet Honey and the Rock um, and it's another concert film. Um, but what I noticed is your name and title lands first in the credits before the director whose name is Joseph Camp. >> Uhhuh. And it kind of lingers solo there for a few beats. And it made me wonder like was there something there like were you supposed to be credited as a director and it wasn't possible because of how things sometimes work or >> no again parameters of the grant. The first money for that came from Weta which are is a flagship uh uh network station in Washington DC of the whole PBS network. And so part of them they were trying to get more involvement of uh black and brown uh and indigenous filmmakers producing work for the air. And uh they part of the parameters were that they would give you a crew from their station and a director who's assigned to your project. So what it really boiled down was to was a minority producers grant. Okay. >> But I the only I did not shoot the concert uh which was via remote truck back in the day. That was a big thing. I was so proud. You know, you go out and you you know cuz back in the day in the 80s, 1980, 81,82, you would bring the truck with the crew, the cameras, you know, you' be in the parking lot and they'd be switching it out in the truck. They be putting it together, you know, fading up, rolling in whatever credits, whatever. Do you mind using the mic recording? Yeah. Sorry. Just for the posterity texture and going. >> I'm losing it. And prevagen. I need a little more prevagen before I stepped on the stage, but that's the next that's tomorrow. Um >> relatable. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um the point being that uh Joseph was an incredible director. one of the premier directors from Weta, still works for Weta. So when you see um the concert for the Fourth of July that usually is broadcast all around the country that comes out of DC, he's a director for it. I mean, you know, he's got 40 years, 50 years of work. And so, you know, I was happy he was doing it because I knew it'd be right. there would not be flaws based on >> okay >> you know my first experience doing a remote shoot >> right >> but he worked very well with me >> to make me feel comfortable in all of the things I did shoot the interviews the b-roll the archival you know all of that >> and so what they kind of did as a favor was sit on the producers credit a little longer and there usually is a there usually is an order >> right >> usually In movies, the director was the last thing. >> That's what I noticed. Yeah. >> In television, you might see. So, in this regard, it was following that formula. It was a producer. They just sat on it a little longer and then it was Joseph Campbell. >> Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, I had made up this whole story in my mind of like they had a beef and they didn't give her the credit she deserved cuz you know, as you're well aware, that happens sometimes. Um, so I'm glad that I was completely wrong about that. >> Um, >> let know that >> I I want to open up for questions. Oh, okay. We got one right here. Uh, way in the front. If you could um stand up and um tell us your name and state your question. Um, wait till the mic comes to you. Our staff is coming to Kenya a mic. >> Hello. Okay. My question is first of all I great two films looking forward to the rest but I just wanted to share a little story. Uh me and Michelle go way back. We tooured showing our films in Philadelphia way back. She already gave her age so in 73 and 74. But what I want to add is we went to Betty Carter's house be to get the production started and thanks to Michelle I got to meet her and hear the stories and then the lights went out. I don't know if you remember that. And we had to go to Betty's basement to turn the lights in her Brooklyn house went out and we had to go downstairs to the basement. And that and seeing my friend again is a memorable moment of spending that day with Miss Betty Carter. She is so real, so down to earth. When you saw the sheet music, she taught us that people like Hamp and all the big guys taught her how to write sheet music. Those were her songs that they were playing. I just wanted to add that to the thing. >> Okay. >> Thank you, >> BTS. We love that. Um, anyone else have a question? >> With a group of questions here. Um, first of all, I went to Temple University. I was actually, well, I didn't go to Temple University. I was born at Temple University Hospital. So, so hearing about Philadelphia like it just brings me back to my hometown. So wonderful that you did your stuff in Philly. But I have a question for you and for Christopher. Number one, uh, programs like the National Endowment of Arts and things in Washington DC. A lot of those programs have been eliminated for filmmakers and artists. Um, what should a filmmaker or artist do now? And this is to Michelle, um, to get their art produced. And my question for Christopher, you know, so I can give the mic to someone else. The Chris my Christopher Christopher was that piece that you sang at the end was just beautiful in in the film. What inspired that? >> That's it. That's it for me. >> You want to start? >> Sure. I'll start. Well, that piece at the end is a piece the lyrics are by Essex Hip Hill >> and the uh music is by Larry Ducket. >> Oh, okay. >> It was a piece that um Essex H asked me to do that back in the 80s. It's part of a larger production that he had and it was in the can for a while and um I rarely even performed the piece. Um and I'm the only one that really does it but just so I can't hold on to any inspiration. It was purely under instruction that that piece came about. I was doing what I was told. >> Uh yes, we must, as Sonia Sanchez says, resist, resist, resist and keep moving forward. pivot was one of our production words. Another one was Onwood. And it's getting ready to get crazy now. As you see, you know, Donald Trump is now chairman of the Kennedy Center. Um the NEA and NE and everybody the big the headquarters there in DC, everybody's hearing the sound of rushing air and and scissors. And so it's like, you know, we you got to be in war mode about it. But these the beauty of these times is that it things are digital. So you can do crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, all kinds of ways of raising money without it's maybe not as easy. Certainly you don't have to produce the tones that you have in terms of grant applications themselves. They're really quite uh they should be their own form of literature people. As a matter of fact, I used to teach grant making because it's like, you know, so the digital world helps bring some of the ease on that in terms of the shutdown that's happening day upon day upon day with the the current uh president whose name I will not mention again. And so, you know, we we are creative people. We're not here by mistake. We're on the wisdom and the creativity of others whose situations were far more drastic than our own. And so we must learn, create, take the technology, figure out what Elon Musk has no sense of, and and get your money, honey, and do what you have to do because these things we talk cost money. It's not just aesthetics, as you said in your opening remarks, which are great. It's not just aesthetics. The aure sensibilities you have will not carry you. This is a cash and carry business. This is a deliverable state. This is licenses and for every bit of music or bite or picture, somebody has to give you permissions. This is a a legal experience you're watching as well. So, we've got to keep that part of our creativity and invention. invention more than anything going along to rebuke what's in process now short of getting rid of Mr. With with Fierce and Serve, we had to again use our imagination. We did crowdfunding for Fierce and Serve as well. Even though we had that major grant from Humanities DC, we sought smaller community grants from entities that were not attached to any governmental restrictions. And we did crowd sourcing and we just we hustled, you know, each step. We just hustled to get the money going. And that's what folk are going to have to do. You know, we are not hustling is not something new for us. You know, we know how to do this. It's it's cellular. We just have to brush away those cobwebs and push forward. >> Um let's go to the back here. Uh um is the person with the mic here still? Um can you raise your hand high so they can see you? Yes, you. Mhm. Yeah. Hi. Um, I just want to say that the both both of the films are very impactful. Um, especially for me. I'm a Howard graduate, studied African-American, >> you know, and I'm also an ethnomusicology PhD student and Betty Carter is one of my favorite artists. So, it was just amazing seeing it again like years later. And I was wondering um what was the selection process behind using the concert film from Crarampton Auditorium because um during my undergraduate experience I found that Crampton used to be this sort of nexus for many musical dignitaries like Nina Simone, Herby Man, Earthwind and Fire etc. Uh currently that doesn't really happen I guess with contemporary musicians. So I think that's kind of interesting. And also with the coffee shop I used to live or not the coffee shop, the performing center. How do you pronounce it again? >> Coffee house. Enley coffee house. >> Enic coffee house. I used to live close to 8 street too. And I think a lot of what I know about DC, I guess, in regards to its history, much of it has um disappeared, which is I, you know, I feel like it's sad. I feel like I'm only getting the remnants of what used to be Chocolate City. Um, so I was just wondering like how how do you both I guess navigate through that and also what that selection process was for choosing the concert film from Crampson Auditorium. >> The coffee house. >> Okay. Well, um, it's like chocolate shavings now. And um, it's bittersweet. Not to keep the man not to keep the metaphor going too long, but um you hold on because you are. I'm a native Washingtonian. Um I love my city. DC has a very strong tradition in African-American culture and its politics and in um the st history of the people that came during the great migration and moved into DC. So you continue because you are um as an artist now at my age and at this point in DC there are still some art venues that exist not only for film but for theater but for music. Um there are some places that again are not within the grip of the federal government that that work very diligently and consciously to be open spaces for all of the city. and you just gravitate to where that is. Um, the coffee house experience was one built out of community, which goes, I think, to the structure in producing the film as well. And it was a pre-digital community. I think that moving forward what we're going to find is a resurgence of that kind of energy because it's going to take community to kind of for us to sur to us to um survive what's coming our way not only artistically but politically but spiritually socially and community is important and I think that's you know kind of the ways that I found to be able to maneuver the times as they as they exist right now. >> Thank you for that question. Um, okay. This will be the last question >> to answer about um >> you need to move along. >> Um, it's that's the way Q&A's work. Not everyone gets their question answered. Um Um, did you want Why don't you pick the last person? >> No, thank you. >> Okay. Well, does anyone else have their hand up or >> Okay. Well, there you go. >> This is shy. This is a shy. We love the first row. This shy person in half won't be able to see you otherwise the lights are bright. >> Hi. Oh, okay. Um, so in the Betty Carter film, it was really I thought it was really cool how you were able to um like weave the narrative of the interview into the like predetermined set list of the concert. So that um while we hear about like the development of her craft, so we also see like the development through the concert. And I felt like the like as she was talking about how she like improved as a performer, it kind of like climaxed with like the last piece in the concert. And I was wondering how it was different with the coffee house film um to like be able to create that narrative and to pick what pieces are being performed um versus working with like a predetermined set list. >> Excellent question. >> Uh well also you have to understand too as we were talking about the structure of making fness serve was a group effort. So there were many discussions about what what elements would be in this film, justification for what should should not be or what we didn't know or remember. And so that was totally different. As for Betty Carter, the selections, yes, the music is supposed to in some way illustrate her thoughts. Um, illustrate what you see of her at home sewing her costumes or what what you know going to her kids graduation. You know, what's the life? Who is the person behind this fantastic genius of music that you're seeing? because you know that that would not have been to me a fully engaging film, but certainly be one I would pay to see anyhow because Betty is just phenomenal. But I wanted it to be like a commentary. The film is in discussion with itself or validating the narrative with the music and sometimes what she says justifies the selection of music. Some of them were her greatest hits as well, like the trolley song. Everybody that's a Betty Carter fan knows that one. Um, the Siri, >> moving on. >> Moving on. Uh, she didn't do Siri with the French on top, but that's another hit. Um, Baby, it's cold outside. These were big hits for her uh when she was uh working with Colombia uh when she did the collab with Ray Charles. So, there were certain things I knew I need to hit for all of the fans out there that knew Betty and knew the ones they wanted to hear and and also to show the synergy of how she works with her band and how they support what she does as well because I found that part to be fascinating. And then you have L, excuse me. Then you have Lionel Hampton come in and bring back the foundations of Betty Carter's evolution as a singer, not just a scat singer, but a phenomenal jazz singer in terms of ballads, a whole range of films. And her selection of unusual music for a jazz singer is also a hallmark uh of her artistry as well. I don't I don't hear too many I don't hear Sarah Bond do Siri with the friends on top. Uh but Betty Carter did, you know, it's like clang clang clang with you put that in jazz, right? Uh you know, Betty Carter did cuz she it's brilliant like that. She knew the phenomenal flexibility and elasticity of the music known as jazz and the roots of where it came from and how it could be applied. >> Okay. Well, um that is going to conclude the Q&A. Um but Michelle will be back tomorrow night with uh two additional collaborators on the films we're showing tomorrow night. Um one of whom I think is in the audience. back there on top of >> our collaboration >> with the co-director of the Audrey Lord doc um and um we'd love to see you back and we're going to show now um got to make that journey got to make this journey um with Sweet Honey in the Rock. If you've been feeling kind of bummed out lately, I'm not sure why. Um, this film will really like revive your spirit like and that's why I put it last and that's why I wanted it to be in this selection because I really feel like it's good medicine for what we need now. Even though when I programmed it um it was a few several months ago before all this uh came out. But um yeah, so that's my pitch for you to stay and um we're going to go ahead and get started. Move off the theater. >> Thank you all for coming out. >> Thank you. Thank you for having us.