Biografie

13. April 1944 · Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA

He and filmmaker Haile Gerima were classmates at UCLA's Film School; Gerima acknowledges him as a friend and mentor.

Brother-in-law of filmmaker Joy Shannon

He has directed two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Schafe töten (1978) and Zorniger Schlaf (1990).

In cinema (black people) are the only ones whose language is considered realistic when it's demeaning.

The best director is a good listener. He incorporates ideas from everyone he works with, steering with a steady but not rigidly controlling hand.

For me, anyone who finishes a film I take my hat off to. When an audience sees a finished film, it doesn't know the wars fought by the director to make his or her picture.