Ryan Coogler discusses the influence of John Singleton, Chadwick Boseman and future projects at the Emotional BAFTA David Lean Lecture

Black Panther Filmmaker Ryan Coogler received a standing ovation as he closed an emotional edition of BAFTA’s David Lean Lecture Series in London on Monday.

The annual lecture is the centerpiece of BAFTA’s public programme. Past speakers include Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Paul Greengrass, David Lynch and Spike Lee.

Coogler’s session was packed with a mix of general cinephiles and industry professionals, including several members of London’s Identity School of Acting, best known for producing talent like John Boyega and Coogler’s Black Panther Star Letitia Wright.

Coogler opened the speech by telling the audience that he felt “deeply unworthy” to deliver the Lean speech, which he accepted despite being “in a hurry” to finish it. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

“I feel like I’m in a place where maybe I shouldn’t be. It’s a feeling I’ve gotten used to throughout my life and career. Moments like this never change,” he said.

Coogler said he has a “complicated relationship” with film, strongly shaped by his family and the “shared experience and responsibilities” as a black filmmaker in the industry.

“I didn’t know if I was going to be a black filmmaker making independent films or a black filmmaker making big films. But I knew I was joining a very important group,” he said. “I felt it when I shook John [Singleton’s] Hand for the first time, and I felt it when I shook Spike [Lee’s] hand for the first time.”

Coogler spoke at length about his relationship with John Singleton, telling the audience that the filmmaker debuted in 1991. guys in the area was the first film he remembers seeing in theaters with his father, after which he took a long break to hold back tears.

Singleton died in 2019 after suffering a stroke, but Coogler told the audience that the filmmaker had become one of his personal mentors and shared a seminal text he received from Singleton about the importance of helping other black people meeting people to support the filmmaker in his second film Believe opened in 2015.

“I saw a message he sent me a few weeks after I watched it Believe, and it started with a photo of the tickets he bought for himself and his daughter. He sent me the cards and said: “It’s a ritual. We always do it for each other,” Coogler said of Singleton’s lyrics.

“He doesn’t have to explain to me who we are. It was black filmmakers who showed that they would really buy the ticket because it meant something.

Coogler also got visibly emotional while discussing Chadwick Boseman, who died in 2020 while preparing for it Wakanda forever.

“I was in a position where I was not comfortable. I was a director without a lead and was assigned to make a film about a hero when we just lost ours,” Coogler said of that time. “So the question was, what do you do when your existence and your identity is determined by someone else and you lose it? This question motivated us to finish the film.”

Coogler ended his performance on stage by teasing some of his production company Proximity Media’s upcoming projects, including creed 3directed by Michael B Jordan.

“It’s an incredible script written by my brother Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin who did it King Richard‘ he said of the film. “We are also doing a TV show about the character Riri Williams, in which he played Wakanda foreverand it will come out in the fall.

The television show Coogler is referring to here is the Marvel/Disney series heart of steelstarring Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, an MIT student and Chicago tech genius who creates armor to rival that of Tony Stark’s Iron Man.

Looking to the future, he added: “It’s only recently that people who look like me are allowed to make films in this format. We are still finding our way.”