Lee Daniels interview

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Transcript

00:00How am I treating Dubai is more the question.

00:14Oh boy.

00:15I'm having the time of my life.

00:18I think that I came here to learn and have I learned, I've learned in a way that I can't,

00:28I'm so grateful to God to have been able to come out here.

00:33I was supposed to come out here last year, but I had to do The Butler, and so this year

00:40when they invited me again, I was very humbled and I flew out immediately.

00:49I mean you know, I don't, I think when I do a movie, a little bit of my soul dies, a lot

00:58a bit of my soul dies, because I give everything I have, you know, I forget my partner, I forget

01:03my children, I forget my food to eat, I forget my mother, because I'm giving birth to something.

01:12So everything I have in me is pregnant for the delivery of the child.

01:19And you proved her wrong, obviously.

01:31Because she knows me very well, and she says, you know, I'm a filmmaker, and she says, you

01:37know, with TV, it's a democracy, and in film, the director is God, so she didn't understand

01:47how I would ever take instructions or orders from anybody.

01:55And so, gotcha Oprah, I did it!

02:03With film, you know, I come in with a very high brow, you know, just thinking I'm expecting

02:10cinema, you know, and so I'm thinking, no, no, no, you know, it should be this way, it

02:17should be that way, no, no, no, no, and then I realize, and the head of the festival, and

02:24I said, listen, if you want to, if you want to give, bring in other, you know, directors

02:37to come in to be on the jury, you've got to up the ante, you've got to make some better

02:42films, you've got to do some better material.

02:45And then he informed me that, you know, that this film culture is like a child, it's new,

02:54and that, especially for the documentaries, that the filmmakers, that the actors, that

03:00the crew are putting their lives in jeopardy sometimes, literally, in Israel, or wherever

03:10they're shooting.

03:12And I think, oh my God, you know, oh my God, I have to judge it completely different.

03:19And so, for that I am incredibly humbled, and it's just been a wonderful, magical experience.

03:31I am very, very blessed to be alive, to have escaped the, you know, I've watched people

03:41die in my arms as a kid, you know, it's like, it was like Vietnam where I grew up, you know,

03:51I've watched people die in my arms of HIV, you know, this is something that is real to

03:58me, and if I can't show that on screen, if I can't get you to feel what I have experienced,

04:04then I have not done my job as a filmmaker.

04:10To my fellow filmmakers out there, and to filmmakers that want to be filmmakers, and

04:14aspiring filmmakers, always tell the truth, always live in your truth, don't be ashamed

04:19of who you are, or where you come from, or what you are about, because we have the power

04:26to change the world.