The team behind “Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” relied on documents about James Baldwin and Kurt Cobain – documentaries about the candidates

Heading to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project is about the poet, with Giovanni himself on the screen. Co-director Joe Brewster said he did not want to make a traditional documentary or biopic and was inspired by documentaries about James Baldwin and Kurt Cobain.

“We actually presented it as I’m not your nigga meet Kurt Cobain: Montage of HeckBrewster said at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary.

Co-director Michèle Stephenson added that she wanted the film to focus on Giovanni, rather than other speakers reflecting on their impact.

“Part of our visual vision and story vision came from a certain frustration with watching certain biographical documentaries,” Stephenson said. “We wanted to focus on her and her work and see everything through her voice to get a sense of what the process, the process of creating artistic poetry was like.”

Brewster and Stephenson also got creative when Giovanni’s memory was impaired or she refused to talk about parts of her past.

“She had major memory issues and we’re taking advantage of that and it’s clear,” Brewster said. “We use various devices to highlight it. So we like to think it’s part of the journey we’re taking the audience on.”

Stephenson noted that any gaps in Giovanni’s first-hand memory may have been filled by her poetry at the time.

“Joe was also really about looking at poetry to see how we could build a story around it and create a deeper understanding of who she is, what she’s done?” Stephenson said. “The ability to work with poetry is one of the most powerful mediums one can work with.”

Giovanni was not always willing to read her own poems either. Taraji P. Henson, who also worked as a producer on the film, reads some of Giovanni’s poems on camera.

Producer Tommy Oliver covered Henson’s recruitment process.

“Nikki didn’t want to go back,” Oliver said. “She didn’t want to read a specific poem, but it was important that the film should go to those places. This is where the idea of ​​someone like Taraji comes from. She saw the film. She was happy. She was really happy to do it. It was a beautiful process in which she accepted what Joe and Michèle did: the importance of Nikki in her life.”

As the title suggests, one of Giovanni’s poems, “Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea (We’re Going to Mars),” features prominently in the film. For Giovanni, space took on greater meaning.

“She literally used the space as a child to deal with a childhood that was pretty traumatic,” Brewster said. “The space becomes a little more personal. You develop relationships with the people around us. I think that’s why the film moves people. Now we have a tangible way to experience what she calls space, but we call it love. You can really see and feel it when the film reaches the third act. Devastation warning.”

Stephenson said she believes Giovanni really wants to visit Mars. Since that trip was still a while away, Stephenson felt she could use it as a metaphor.

“It’s really about what it means to be human?” Stephenson said. “What does it mean to be Earthlings, as she says?” What obstacles must we overcome to make this journey to Mars truly transformative? Besides race, it is mainly about the earth we live on. How can we anchor our relationships?”

Check back Tuesday to watch the panel video.