A few years ago, when director Roger Ross Williams was considering starting his own production company, he suffered the realm of dreams Facial vision: “If you build, they will come.”
The reveal took place far from the film’s Iowa cornfields. “I was really going to Brooklyn with this big empty office space,” Williams recalls, “and I thought, ‘Wow, this is a great office space.’ I have to hire him to create my company. ‘ I thought renting an office space would force me to occupy it. ”Fill it out, first modifying it, then filling it out. One Story Up has become a thriving company and one of the few African American manufacturing companies in the industry. The company name does not indicate a physical location but rather an idea.
“I liked the word ‘history’ in the name and getting to the top. “Two things: growing colorful directors and telling stories,” Williams said. “I told myself that I should use the production house as a way to help other artists like me who felt marginalized and, so to speak, had no place at the table.”
Apparently without even winning an Oscar, Williams took his place at that table. In 2010 he became the first African American director to receive an Oscar for his short documentary. musical prudence. But he says the result didn’t lead to a flurry of offers.
“The phone didn’t ring, no one called me,” he says. “I wasn’t getting a job.”
However, he went on to direct many other projects, including a couple of documentaries: God loves Uganda In 2013 and lively lifeWhich earned an Oscar nomination in 2017. The following year, Williams collaborated on One Story Up with an old friend, producer Jeff Martz.
“I trusted him and he had experience.” Williams says in March. “The first thing we did was a series innocence file for Netflix. I directed the first three episodes and that was the first use of this office space.
Williams says One Story Up currently has “14 or more” projects in various stages of completion, including movies and series. When we spoke, he was on set. Stamp from the startA feature film written on a hybrid screenplay for Netflix, based on Ibra X. Kendi’s best-seller.
“I’m in the studio right now, grabbing the green screen set, doing some rehearsal shots with the actors,” he says, explaining that this is part of an accelerated production schedule. “There are basically three feature films coming out at the end of next year, and it happened because the pandemic delayed everything. It will be a screenplay, a documentary film and a hybrid. It covers the whole earth there ”.
Your independent written function, CassandroThe lead role of Gael García Bernal in the true story of Saúl Armendaris, a gay wrestler from El Paso, Texas, who wrestled with Drag as a character in El Exótico. “I shot it last summer in the middle of a pandemic in Mexico City,” Williams said. “It is such a colorful and fascinating world. This is a very inspiring film and Gael is fantastic. “
Williams is working on a documentary about the late singer Donna Summer, which he directs with Summer’s daughter, Brooklyn Sudan. Among other projects, he is a producer ebony empireDocumentary by Lisa Cortés about the pioneering black media company Johnson Publishing, which he founded ebony Y Reagent diaries. And launches the Hulu documentary series, which is sure to attract a lot of attention: project 1619Based on Opus-winning New York Times work by journalist Nicole Hanna-Jones.
He said Williams will shoot the first and final installments of the series, which will be produced by One Story Up with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films, The New York Times and Lionsgate Television. The series unhesitatingly examines the history and legacy of slavery in the United States and how systemic racism persists in public and private institutions.
“It’s very important to Nicole Hanna-Jones project 1619 It was in the hands of African American creators who continue to live with what experience project 1619 “It comes,” Williams said. “And Ibrahim X. Candy’s book was important How to become an anti-racist was number one New York Times A list of best sellers after George Floyd by racial evaluation – which was the majority – of the African American producer and the black creator to whom he entrusted his work.
The conservatives attacked project 1619 As well as Kendall’s creativity; Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas verified both names during a recent hearing with US Supreme Court Justice Katanji Brown Jackson.
“Ted Cruz has a candy book in his hand anti-racist boy [during the hearing] And I thought, ‘Well, I’m doing something right,’ ”laughs Williams. “Yup [works from] Two people I respect: Dr. Ibram X. Kendi and Nikole Hannah-Jones are One Story Up projects, I’m doing something right. It was a sad time for America. [to see Sen. Cruz denigrate them]But I am proud to be able to tell these important stories. And I don’t take it lightly. I don’t believe it for a second. “
He adds: “This country, in my opinion, is in crisis… We need to discuss and reconcile some issues regarding race and, of course, slavery. And I hope people sit and watch project 1619 Open-minded and able to learn and accept facts as they are. There is no fiction, just facts. 1619. And there are a lot of wonderful people in this series. It’s the same Stamp from the start. These are historical facts. “People want to call it fiction for their own convenience, but it’s a historical fact.”
Opening doors to others has made Williams a business disruptor. Don’t be afraid of the term. lice “Yes, I’m really a rapist,” he told her. “Proud, proud.”
This refers to his time serving on the Motion Picture Academy’s Board of Governors. He was elected for two consecutive terms in 2016 as the representative of the documentary branch.
“I walked into that room for the first time and I remember it very clearly,” Williams said of the initial board meeting. “The only other black person (then president of the academy) was Cheryl Boone Isaacs. I remember seeing Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg sitting at the table. Sure, there were some women, but mostly white men. And I thought, how did I get into this room? I just didn’t believe it. I thought, well, you can sit down or you can stop the academy. And the way I could do it is at my branch. “
In 2016, under the leadership of Boone Isaacs, the academy launched its A2020 initiative to “double the number of women and underrepresented racial / ethnic communities and significantly increase its international membership by 2020”. Williams took that goal and ran with it.
“I started involving a lot of people of color. On the one hand, you can count the number of Latin participants when I signed up; Two hands, perhaps the number of African American members and a very small international [contingent]“Now the documentary branch is the third international. We are the first branch to move from gender inequality to gender equality. And we have an incredible number of BIPOC members. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are the most diverse branch of the academy. The Academy recognizes this. “They said we are the gold standard, the document industry, and I am very proud of that work for the past six years. I am very proud to be an example for other branches, that is my goal.”
His goal with One Story Up is to continue to provide space for BIPOC talent to thrive. specific case master of light, a documentary film by Rosa Boesten about the extraordinary artist George Anthony Morton. In March, the film won the SXSW Grand Jury Prize.
“Everyone who worked on this project, Rosa, the first director of stone films, Ephraim Kirkwood, the first black editor, Francesca Sharper, associate editor, her first feature film, Jürgen Lise, the parliamentarian from Suriname, პირველად, all them, the first color “He wins,” Williams said. “What does this tell you?” That if you enable people of color, the directors of BIPOC will shine, win, create great content and tell fantastic and positive stories about positive and uplifting characters like George. That victory was the real stamp that Jeff and I created in One Story Up. “
Another final stamp of approval came with the Peabody Award nomination for One Story Up in Netflix documentaries. High Pig: how black cuisine transformed AmericaDirected by Williams, Jonathan Clasbury and Yoruba Ruben.
In just a few years, the company has grown from a start-up to a major force, providing content to Netflix, HBO, Hulu, and A&E, among others. “One Story Up just blew up, all this new talent worked,” Williams said. “We have become very big in the last three years, [we have] One hundred people work for us.
And with this expansion comes the challenge. “We have surpassed our position,” Williams said. “So now I’m looking for a new office space.”
This maxim quoted from the film might come in handy: “If you build, they will come.”
Source: Deadline
