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I made a film as part of a 'short filmmaking challenge' where I had a weekend to cast it. The story was semi-autobiographical and based on an experience I'd had at a Welsh comprehensive school, the characters were written as white in my head as they were based on people from the school.
I had pretty much given up on finding actors who would 'get' the part. Two days before we shot, the producer called me and said 'I know these two kids, they're really good actors - the guys black though is that ok?' at that point I needed actors, I trusted my producer and I didn't really think that the guy being black would make any difference as the film was about gender, power, teenagers and bullying.
The film turned out to be a success, however, in the film the male character is aggressive towards the female character and as the male character happens to be black I now face a constant discussion of the 'race issues' and 'race stereotyping' in my film, which, as far as I'm concerned weren't there when it was written or directed.
It's gone so far as to be on stage talking about the film in front of a few hundred people at an event when the host posed the question 'lets talk about the issues in your film' - I started to talk about gender, and power, and human rights - he interrupted me and said 'no, I mean race' - to which the black actor in the film who was also onstage responded with the question as to whether I shouldn't have cast him in the role because he was black?
It's perverse. I recently was casting another film about date rape and was trying to make something which didn't exploit a sensitive issue, I was having such a terrible time trying to find a young actor in his early twenties who had the skill to do the role and was willing to work for the little amount we were offering, whilst the whole time all I wanted to do was cast the guy who is the best young actor I've ever worked with - and I couldn't because he's black, and that would have meant I would have made a film about a 'black' guy raping a girl, rather than about a man assuming control of a woman - and all of the discussion I was trying to create about sexuality would have been lost, yet again, to a discussion about race.
Black and ethnic minority performers are marginalised, which is absurd considering how multicultural our world is. I'm not saying we should disregard someone’s ethnicity, but in terms of what people bring to a role - surely the primary thing should be their talent rather than their skin tone?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/...omment-13266623
I had pretty much given up on finding actors who would 'get' the part. Two days before we shot, the producer called me and said 'I know these two kids, they're really good actors - the guys black though is that ok?' at that point I needed actors, I trusted my producer and I didn't really think that the guy being black would make any difference as the film was about gender, power, teenagers and bullying.
The film turned out to be a success, however, in the film the male character is aggressive towards the female character and as the male character happens to be black I now face a constant discussion of the 'race issues' and 'race stereotyping' in my film, which, as far as I'm concerned weren't there when it was written or directed.
It's gone so far as to be on stage talking about the film in front of a few hundred people at an event when the host posed the question 'lets talk about the issues in your film' - I started to talk about gender, and power, and human rights - he interrupted me and said 'no, I mean race' - to which the black actor in the film who was also onstage responded with the question as to whether I shouldn't have cast him in the role because he was black?
It's perverse. I recently was casting another film about date rape and was trying to make something which didn't exploit a sensitive issue, I was having such a terrible time trying to find a young actor in his early twenties who had the skill to do the role and was willing to work for the little amount we were offering, whilst the whole time all I wanted to do was cast the guy who is the best young actor I've ever worked with - and I couldn't because he's black, and that would have meant I would have made a film about a 'black' guy raping a girl, rather than about a man assuming control of a woman - and all of the discussion I was trying to create about sexuality would have been lost, yet again, to a discussion about race.
Black and ethnic minority performers are marginalised, which is absurd considering how multicultural our world is. I'm not saying we should disregard someone’s ethnicity, but in terms of what people bring to a role - surely the primary thing should be their talent rather than their skin tone?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/...omment-13266623
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