All language subtitles for Compensation 1999 1080p USA BluRay HEVC

[Davis] Hi, this is Zeinabu Irene Davis.

I am the producer, director,
and creditor of Compensation.

[Cheryl My name is Marc Chery,
and I am the writer and coproducer.

[D�sir] This is Pierre D�sir,

and I am the cinematographer
and the storyboard artist.

[Davis] So the title
of the film, Compensation,

includes the word "compensation�
written in regular print

but also with ASL letters.

The film itself is dedicated
to Toni Cade Bambara,

who was a writer

as well as an important influence
on many of us,

Scott Eddins, who was one of my students,

who passed away from HIV/AIDS
right before the film started,

and then lastly, it was for my auntie
Winifred Davis as well.

The music was done
by Reginald R. Robertson,

who did all of the ragtime score.

And the original African percussive music
was done by Atiba Jali.

Sound design was done in Chicago
with Maestro-Matic.

And we had
a wonderful art director, Janina,

who came from theater background.

Cathy Cook is an experimental filmmaker
as well as a good friend of mine.

We know who this guy is.

[Davis & D�sir chuckle]

-[D�sir] Yeah.
-[Davis] He's sitting right here.

And Yvonne was from Chicago.

Yvonne and Dana were both

at the School of the Art Institute
in Chicago.

So they were really instrumental
in making sure the film got done.

And the film is introduced
by Haitian v�ve� symbols.

The first one is Legba,
Keeper of the Crossroads,

because that's how you begin a story.

And then this is the text
of the poem "Compensation�

that was written by Paul Laurence Dunbar
before he passed away

from tuberculosis in 1906.

So it's one of the last poems
that he wrote,

and we were introduced to it

because it used to be on a plaque
outside of his home in Dayton, Ohio.

I just love Dunbar's eyes in this photo.

It's one of my favorite photos of him,
as a young man.

The title cards themselves
are styled after early silent cinema.

So you see the two heads
of my logo for my company,

Wimmin With a Mission.

The heads are book ended on that,

and then we used whatever script
that seemed most appropriate.

It took me many years

to find these photographs
that introduce us to Chicago.

As an independent--

Alternative independent cinema
that we are a part of,

I did not have the funds

to actually redesign streets
on contemporary Chicago

to look like 1905 Chicago.

The best way for us to do that was
to actually incorporate still photography,

historical photographs.

So many of these photographs

were specifically
from the Chicago History Center.

[D�sir] I think also, because we had
a limited budget and limited time,

we couldn't look for places

that would convey the time
that we were trying to recreate.

[Davis] Right, right, right.

And I played
a little fast and dirty with it,

so the photo of the people on the street
is actually from Richmond, Virginia.

It's not from Chicago.

But it was very difficult at that time
to access photographs.

The Chicago Defender
was one of the early papers

that was dedicated to serving
the Black community of Chicago

at the time.

It's where I got a lot
of my source material

about where the films were started.

We had to actually physically go
to the archives.

This wasn't when you can actually
look stuff up digitally online.

This is pre-online digital archives.

So a lot of these
were from different places

from all over the country.

Unusual places too.

There's no folder that says
"African American early life."

There were different places
where you had to find things,

like Visiting Nurses' Association

or something that had to do
with, like, labor or other subject matter.

And the archivists
were really, really good to me.

And the longer I was there,

the more they would bring out materials
for me to use.

So I really appreciated them.

Scott Joplin was such a big influence
on American music,

and I don't think that he gets the due
that he should have.

This sequence introduces Malindy.

And you notice that each character
will have a different type of script

and a symbol.

Hers is a sewing needle and thread.

So we do that for each character.

These were from Gallaudet University.

So these were photographs
that actually came from Gallaudet

that showed the history
of Deaf education in this country.

And this incident did also happen,

that the Kendall School for the Deaf
segregated in 1906,

and then Black and, at that time,
Indigenous Americans

were segregated out of the school.

So this is them before that happened.

So basically, those title cards
are trying to contextualize the film

for our audiences

so that they know this is not just
something that was done fictionally.

It's actually based
in historical fact and record.

We were influenced by what we knew
to build the film.

[D�sir] I really enjoyed shooting
in the dunes,

and I took influence

from both Rashomon and La Strada

as great black-and-white cinema.

I looked at them

because we had videotapes
at Ithaca College, where I was working.

So... Ah, yes, this was strictly chance.

[Davis] The scene with the ducks
and the girls catching the ducks

were found by
one of our production assistants,

Christine Minor.

She said, "Z, come on,
you gotta come see this!

Come see. Come look at this."

And we rushed over,

and Pierre and Greg, who was our AC,
were able to capture that really quickly.

So... independent film making:

Use the resources
that are available to you

or the opportunities
that open themselves to you.

[D�sir] Now, this is
not Chicago, obviously.

This is the Indiana Dunes
on Lake Michigan.

It was a great location.

[Davis] Yeah, it was called Kemil Beach,
is where we were filming here.

And this young girl, Tildy Evans,

was the daughter of one of my good
also-filmmaker friends, Portia Cobb,

who is also in the film later on.

And that's her daughter Nirvana.

I wanted to talk a little bit
about the sound in this scene too.

We-- Of course,
because we're shooting at the beach,

we have to do all of the sound
for the chalkboard

in an ADR session later on.

But it was really important to make sure

that the emotion that happens between
these two characters gets expressed

through the way
that the chalk is percussively hit

on the little slate that she has.

So when you see this,

it's actually me in the edit room

going through and writing this text,

but I'm actually trying to, like,

capture the emotion
of Malindy in particular here,

when she responds to Tildy
that she's not deaf and dumb.

So I hit the slate really hard

to make sure that that percussive emotion
reflected the anger and hurt

that Malindy felt.

And then, of course, Tildy realizes
what she says and says that she's sorry,

and she's learning sign language
and alphanumeric text.

She's learning sign language
at the same time.

And again, trains were a really big way

that folks emigrated
from the South to the North.

A lot of folks in Chicago were coming up

from places like Alabama
and Mississippi, Louisiana.

So by not having dialogue
in the beginning of this film...

There is no dialogue
until about 20 minutes in.

...we wanted to get you
into the world of silent cinema,

so sound effects and sound design
were super important,

along with the photographs,

to set you contextually back
into this early-1900s time period.

And I also love this photograph,
which was...

There was a flood,
and people were waiting to be recuperated.

So the idea was to, like, just make sure

that you kind of felt like
you were back in that time period

through the use of the photographs
and the sound and the live action.

So integrating all of those together

to kind of build this world
in the early 1900s

was super important for us.

[Ch�ry] But it is also
to kind of build a world

that folks were running all away from.

For example, you see the cotton fields

and hard domestic work in the South.

It's to set...

It's to try to show
what people like Malindy

and the other folks are getting away from,
from the South.

[D�sir] Especially that zoom-in
on that face, you can see the...

The careworn face of that woman.

-Obviously it appealed to you.
-[Davis] Yeah.

-[D�sir] Because you zoom in on it.
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

[Davis] This was a church
in Evanston that actually...

You can tell from our sign

that we kind of co-opted it

to be what we needed it to be.

But the idea was, again,

to show how Malindy
was really a part of the community...

and welcoming--
She's a woman who's well-off.

She's not a migrant.

Her family's been established
in Chicago for quite some time.

And so she's part of the group of people

who would welcome new migrants
into the city

and provide, you know,
whatever needs they might have,

being clothing, jobs, food,
so on and so forth.

[D�sir] But I also think
that's very important,

that you show an African American family

that has been established
and is living in an established way,

while American cinema
has rarely shown that,

-at least till recently.
-[Davis] Yeah.

[D�sir] But most of the time,
you just see servants and slaves,

and it's as if that's the only thing
that existed back then.

And to show that now...

Especially if you could then talk
about somebody like Scott Joplin.

He wrote music.

He was an educated man,
which there were a lot of.

-[Davis] Exactly.
-[D�sir] And so, you know,

that's a part
of what you're trying to convey.

[Davis] Mm-hm.

This is one of my favorite shots
in the film,

when Arthur's coming up
at the Kemil Beach in Indiana Dunes.

[D�sir] And I'm getting wet.

[Davis laughs] Yeah,
you were definitely getting wet.

And there are those smokestacks
in the background,

which did exist back in the late 1800s.

So they're actually correct.

And you notice that Arthur
has a mandolin for his symbol.

Malindy had the spool and thread,
and Arthur has a mandolin.

So he brings music
and he brings new perspective to Malindy.

He's found a penny on the shore,

and then he looks up and sees Malindy.

Hopefully, what Reginald's music does
at this point

is also kind of open you up
to these new experiences

and this new chapter

that each of these characters
is gonna have

as part of their experiences
of meeting each other here.

And of course, this part of the film
is very much influenced

by Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust.

We have the women in white
and the umbrellas on the beach,

as they did in Daughters of the Dust

and as you will see
in more contemporary works

with Beyonc�'s Lemonade album.

Same references that are being made there.

We thought a lot
and did a lot of research,

Marc especially,

on making sure
that things got incorporated

from literature into this film.

So you see Malindy reading a book.

We have the title cards
that talk about Du Bois' contributions

and also the Chicago Defender.

So we're trying to establish
that African Americans were reading.

[chuckles] They were writing.
They were reading.

They were very productive members
of American society

back from the beginning
of our introduction to this country.

So those things were important
for us to reflect in the film.

The film is a silent film
very much as a response

to the racist film,
D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.

So when we're in film school,
we get bludgeoned with watching that film.

And professors will often talk

about that film's, you know,
great technological achievements,

but they don't talk about the racism

and the ideas of white supremacy
that are inculcated by that film.

So we very much are trying
to go against that.

You just saw that Malindy
is writing a letter to one of the women

who's a fearless campaigner
against racism and lynching in America,

Ida B. Wells-Barnett,

and she was a very brave
and very active journalist

in the early 1900s.

So it was important to make sure
that people who were historical

were also referenced in this film
even though it's fiction.

We still borrow very much
from historical memory

and, you know, actual events.

And if you notice, through the film,

the text "Malindy" is written in cursive.

Go ahead, Marc.

[Ch�ry] I was gonna say
that the other thing to mention too

is that Dunbar and the Malindy character

and the rise of the Chicago Defender,

they're part of this generation,

of what was the second generation,
you could say,

after the Civil War.

So they're coming into their own.

Black Americans are building culture,

specifically a literary culture,

with lots of newspapers being born.

And you have the sense that...

I would say African Americans
have the sense that...

In this period, which is pre-NAACP,

you have a lot of writers,
you have a lot of newspapers.

It's the growth of newspapers
from Chicago to Pittsburgh.

It's just phenomenal,
and it was important to reflect that.

For example, Dunbar is the first writer

of African descent in the U.S.

who actually is making a living
as a writer.

Before him, that does not exist.

And he's actually very popular
in a popular-culture sort of way.

And he's giving voices
to the frustrations,

aspirations of African Americans,

which you see reflected
in that period and in the film.

[Davis] So this scene is actually shot
in the studios at Northwestern University.

We used period wallpaper
to establish the scene.

And over here on the wall,

you see pictures of Frederick Douglass,
Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells,

Paul Laurence Dunbar's in the cameo,
in the circle,

and then Lucy Parsons,

who's one of the early women
who influenced the Haymarket riot

and also is part of the reasons

why we have Labor Day
or unions and workers' rights today.

So it was important to have these
be people that were in Malindy's place

so that those photographs on the wall

are kind of like an homage
or an altar, whatever,

that also celebrates that culture
in that particular time period as well.

[Ch�ry] The picture of Lucy Parsons

represents sort of
an internationalist perspective,

connection with working-class struggles

not only in the U.S. but also in Europe.

The Haymarket people and what they rep,

and the slave labor struggles
that they represented,

was one of the few integrated struggles
in the U.S,,

even around 1875.

So to show Malindy being aware of that

definitely places her in a sort of
class consciousness that she has

that most people in
the old settler Black community of Chicago

would have disapproved of.

[Davis] So this is the introduction
to the present-day,

at that time 1990s, Chicago.

The percussive music, done by Atiba Jali
and my good friend Asma Feyijinmi,

were done with an udu.

So it's a water-sounding
percussive instrument.

So that was very important to me,

to also kind of reflect on how Deaf people
have experiences of sound.

It might not be the way
hearing people have it,

but they do have some sensation of sound.

And in talking to Michelle
when we were doing research,

that led us to include certain types
of audio elements

that would reflect
her experiences of sound.

This, again, is shot at the Indiana Dunes.

Again, each character
has their own symbol.

"Malaika" is "angel" in Swahili.

I spent time in Kenya,
so that's reflected in her name.

And then Nico here

also has a v�v� of Ogun

from Haitian religious practices
known as Vodou.

So that was important for us
to represent here in the film.

And we wanted the film to have some...

You know, it's a serious film,
but there's still humor in what happens,

and this is one of those times
when it does, is...

The thought bubbles
that are in the title cards

kind of reflect the goofiness
that Nico has

when he's trying
to get Malaika's attention.

[D�sir] Also, I noticed several times
when we were shooting on the dunes,

I got lucky with an overcast sky.

That shot of modern Chicago,
there was an overcast as well.

Because a lot of it, I'm fighting
with very dark skin, very bright sky.

But if it's overcast, it helped me.
It's like a big scrim.

But in this scene, we've got sun.

And... [chuckles] I was hoping--
And it came out pretty good.

At least, I think it did.

[Davis] I would agree. [chuckles]

[D�sir] But you can see the way
the sky is washed out here,

while, if you look at the earlier shots

when we had the...
Malindy and Tildy, was it?

-[Davis] Mm-hm. Yes.
-[D�sir] Yeah.

-That had a nice scrim over the sky.
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

[D�sir] I was really working
with two different concepts.

There's the concept of the silent film,
the early films,

and then this more modern one,

and trying to at least make a difference
in the image between the two,

but not too much,

because we think of silent film
as very basic, very simple,

and in actuality, no,

they developed a visual language
that was quite complex.

And I tried to portray that
in the earlier shots

so that it's not as different.

But this... This location was amazing,

as far as what it gave me,
as far as background,

and I'm thinking of the whole frame
and then the characters in it.

Again, this very white sand,
these very dark complexions.

But I believe we were shooting with 7231,
which is a Kodak Plus-X film,

and it has great latitude.

And it's really replicating those images.

And I'm quite happy when I saw the rushes.

[Davis] And we also shot
on an Arri SR camera?

[D�sir] Yeah, an Arriflex SR.

It was always a zoom lens.
We didn't have any prime lenses.

[Davis] No--
Okay, you got that wrong, bro. Sorry.

[D�sir] Oh, yeah? We did?

[Davis] Yeah, we had prime lenses.
I'm looking...

- I got the script supervisor's sheets.
-[D�sir] Okay.

[Davis] We were basically shooting with,
like, 10-12 mm lenses all the time.

So, no, we did not have a zoom lens.

-[D�sir] Okay.
-[Davis] Yeah.

We wouldn't have had a zoom lens,

because we were trying
to replicate silent cinema.

-[D�sir] Right.
-[Davis] So we stuck to primes.

And I rented those primes. [laughs]

[D�sir] We did zoom in a couple of times.

-I'm looking for that.
-[Davis] Yeah. Okay.

[D�sir] But, yeah, I believe you.

You're talking to a 76-year-old

trying to remember what he did
30-odd years ago.

[Davis laughs] No shade. No shade.

I wouldn't have remembered if I didn't
have the script-supervisor notes.

-[D�sir] Yeah, mm-hm.
-[Davis] So that's okay. [laughs]

So this is a photograph
of a nickelodeon theater,

which was started in Pittsburgh,
but, okay, we put it in Chicago anyway.

But that's true, it was a nickel
to buy a movie-theater ticket,

so that's why we have it incorporated here

as an ode
to historical beginnings of cinema.

This is actually in a screening room
at Northwestern University

which we converted to be a movie theater.

Mott Enterprises,
Pekin Stock Company Players,

and Foster Photoplay
were actual entities that produced films.

I love this scene,

again because this was an incorporation
of our friends

Lisa Brock and Otis Cunningham.

And that's-- The guy in the white
with the porter hat

is actually our composer,
Reginald R. Robinson.

So part of our ethos
as L.A. Rebellion filmmakers

is that we use people from our community

to represent who they are in real life.

And these were great activists in Chicago
and friends of ours,

and we used their backyard
to film this scene.

So it's nice to put ordinary people,

who are basically playing themselves
to some degree, in there.

And if you look hard, you can see Marc
in the audience in the background too.

Marc has a lot of credits as an extra.

-In many of our films. [laughs]
-[Ch�ry laughs]

[Davis] Yeah, he's over
in the right corner right there.

[Ch�ry] The other thing
to mention briefly, as Zeinabu mentions,

throughout the country at this time,

you have a lot of Black entrepreneurs
joining this cinema movement.

And Foster...
I forgot his first name, but Foster--

-[Davis] William Foster.
-[Ch�ry] William Foster in Chicago.

His company was one of the early folk
in that field.

They made a film, actually, called...

-[Davis] The Railroad Porter.
-[Ch�ry] ... The Railroad Porter,

which has been lost,
or at least hasn't been found.

Essentially, Zeinabu,

we created our own silent movie
within a movie

to show that part
of the history of cinema.

[Davis] Right, and again,
The Railroad Porter,

the synopsis was actually
in the Chicago Defender,

so that's where we borrowed from,
how to create that scene.

I just changed the ending.

Of course, it's a Zeinabu Davis film,
so the woman has a gun.

Same way that good guys
have a gun, so... [laughs]

But that's-- It was out of research
that that became a part of the film.

And again, this scene is just
kind of illustrating the growing respect

and admiration of each
of these characters for each other.

Again, we're using the text,
the style of the text,

to say something about the time period.

So education is very important.

And this is historical photographs from...

Shoot, I think
these are from Tuskegee, actually,

that were incorporated into the film.

This actually was from Chicago.

This was one of the photos
that I did find.

This was preparation for a World's Fair--

Or World's Fair exhibition
that was done in Chicago.

So these were
from that particular time period.

[D�sir] Ah.

-There we go.
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

Early photographers that were established.

You know, these are not--

These are professionals.

So education, employment,
and enlightenment.

This was done at the very beloved

and famous Salsedo Press
in Chicago, which was--

This is Chris Burke,
who ran Salsedo Press for many years.

And they were very gracious
in letting us film here.

And we had Malaika as a graphic artist,

so it was important for us
to make sure that we placed her

in a Chicago institution
in contemporary times.

Salsedo Press was a press
that was worker-owned

and it was also minority-owned

and provided a lot of support

to different progressive organizations
in Chicago.

So it was important for us
to film here as well.

You wanna say something about this scene,
the Chicago Public Library?

[Ch�ry] Again, using--

Independent film,
using the resources that you have.

I am a public librarian by profession,

and because of that,
this helps not only with research

but also in terms of locations.

The older man you see

in the film was actually my supervisor
I had appear in here.

We just explained
what independent film was,

and he allowed us to shoot in the library.

He interceded with the administration
of the library

to allow us to shoot in there.

So it's a very...

At least for me,
it's a very personal scene,

and the fact that Nico
is a Black librarian

but also a Black children's librarian.

Which is not necessarily rare

but which is thought to be very,
very rare, and it's not.

So it was a great thing to do.

[Davis] And the voice here is my brother,
Kevin Davis, [chuckles]

As a local DJ.

And Kevin makes an appearance
in the film later on.

But "Wee-funk" is something
that he says in another of my films...

our films actually, A Powerful Thang.

[Ch�ry] And going back
to the earlier scene

and talking about the literariness
of the script and of the movie,

and it's only now
that I'm seeing the connections

between Nico being a librarian...
[chuckles]

...and the callback to the literary nature

of the screenplay and of the movie.

[Davis] So in this scene,
Malaika is performing tai chi

as a means of wellness,
of self-care, meditation.

And it was influenced to me
by one of my best friends, who's also...

Another silent partner or collaborator
in this film process

is Doris Owanda Johnson.

She does tai chi,

and she also does the music for a scene

that will occur a little bit later
in the film.

And you notice that
Nico is wearing an ASL alphabet shirt,

so he's really trying to get... [laughs]

...In good with Malaika.

He's bought into learning
about Deaf culture and community

in big ways here.

So we just saw him in the class

where he was learning
sign language as well.

I just wanna say, these actors,

Michelle Angela Banks
and John Earl Jelks,

they're incredible.

Because it was alternative
independent film making,

we rarely did more than two or three takes
on any of these scenes.

And most of the times
when we did two or three takes,

it was because the camera--

The magazine either failed

or there was an issue
with something that was going on.

It wasn't because of performance.

This, again, is to contextualize
the historical period.

This is real.

Black Patti was one of the first
Black opera singers.

And she did perform
quite a bit in Chicago,

so I wanted to also portray that as well.

Then you notice
that the characters' costumes,

these were all period costumes

that we were, again, able to borrow
from the Goodman Theatre.

I also wanna point out
that we have a quilt,

and the connections
between African Americans

and quilting is important.

Quilts were a way that enslaved people
were able to somehow

get the quote-unquote "road map�
to escape to freedom sometimes,

based on the symbolism
that was put in the various quilts.

And you also see a dress in the corner.

Malindy is a dressmaker.

So you see these elements
of what her whole person was

embodied in the film as well.

[Ch�ry] I think this section
establishes the fact

that Arthur has immersed himself
in Deaf culture.

There is a sense that this character,
who did not know how to read,

learns how to read from someone else

who doesn't verbalize,
or who speaks differently from him.

And it's not a callback, a call-forward,

to what we will see in the film later.

For example,
that there's a distinct Deaf culture,

there's a distinct Black Deaf culture,

that is being displayed here.

And just so surprising

the fact that Malindy understands herself
as a whole being

and not as a plaything on display
for hearing people to gawk at.

I think that's...

It's essentially the call-forward

as well as the self-affirmation

of Malindy and Arthur's acceptance of her
the way that she is.

Which is why he's so hurt that she's hurt

at this swanky affair that they went to.

[Davis] Both John Earl Jelks,
the lead actor, and myself

took sign language classes
before we shot the film.

I have, unfortunately, not kept up with it
as much as I wish I could.

I think I would if I was in communication
with more Deaf folks,

but we did learn as much as we could

so that we could use it on set
to communicate with Michelle

when we didn't have interpreters.

And Michelle was so good,
so kind and generous.

And, you know, if we had to,
we went to pad and paper,

because this was before cell phones.

And here we have
some of the photographs of labor

back in the early part
of the 20th century.

So again, trying to establish Chicago

as a place where these workers
kind of combine their efforts

to build the city,
to build this community.

So we go from the past,
and then we tilt up,

and then we come down to the present.

This is actually the first scenes
that we shot in the film,

in July of 1993.

This was part of the Chicago--
Taste of Chicago weekend

that happens every year
just before the 4th of July.

And sadly,
this building doesn't exist anymore,

the Ebony/Jet building,
in the skyline of Chicago.

But at that time, Ebony/Jet
was a very important publication

for the Black community

that gave people
all over the country and the world

an idea of what was happening
in Black culture.

So this was before social media,
so on and so forth.

This was shot guerrilla-style.

Pierre, you wanna talk
about how we shot this--?

-[D�sir] Did we shoot this on a Bolex?
-[Davis] We shot this on a Bolex.

[D�sir] Look, I remember something,
Jeez Louise, 'cause I was wondering.

I'm saying-- We're in this big crowd
and people are leaving us alone,

and I'm saying,
"I've got an Arri SR in this? No, no."

And no, it was a--
Now I remember, yeah, it was a Bolex.

[Davis] Mm-hm.

-[D�sir] My favorite camera.
-[Davis] Yep.

Maya Deren.

[Davis & D�sir laugh]

[Davis] Yeah. And this, again,
was a guerrilla shot as well.

This one, I think, is back on the Arri.

[D�sir] Well, everything
was guerrilla shot.

I mean, we didn't have permission
for anything.

[Davis] We had permission
for some things.

-[D�sir] Okay.
-[Ch�ry] The library, we had permission.

[D�sir] Yeah, okay.

-But on the street?
-[Davis] On the street, no.

[D�sir] No.

-And the subways... [laughs] ...coming up?
-[Davis] No. The I station, yeah.

This is a beautiful mural
at Legler Branch Library,

where Marc used to work
and where we have Nico.

You think you could tell the story
of the brother librarian real quickly?

[Ch�ry] Oh, there's a story
in the library world

of this Black children's librarian.

I forgot which city,
but he was doing exactly--

Something similar
to what Nico Jones is doing.

And a white parent, a mother,

didn't know, or didn't see him
as the real person,

didn't see him as a librarian, and...

I forgot the whole story,
but she either called the police

or called...

Or called the head librarian
to come and kick him out,

not knowing that he was
the children's librarian.

That person wrote something
in our literature

and how his heart was broken.

And Zeinabu, having heard that,
wanted to honor that story.

[Davis] Okay, so this scene introduces
Malaika's best friend, Bill Young,

as played by dancer
and performer Christopher Smith.

And I like that we were able to kind of
reflect something of Deaf culture

so that when the lights go up,
when they flicker like that,

that's how Deaf folks know
that someone's at the door.

And so we wanted to make sure that that
got reflected also in the film itself.

So we have those little lighting effects
that occurred at the same time.

And also with this scene,
music is really important,

and the sound of the music
is really important.

It's very heavy bass,
because you can feel bass.

And we made this audio
a little bit too loud,

just because Michelle
and Christopher would tell me

that they respond
to the vibration in sound,

and that's how they would know
how to do some of the dance moves

or whatever kind of movement
that they were doing.

And you got the librarian
with his "Read and Succeed" T-shirt on.

One of Marc's T-shirts,
I think. [chuckles]

And then you notice
that Bill has on the AIDS insignia

on his T-shirt, for AIDS,
to support efforts

towards fighting HIV/AIDS.

I just love the joy in that scene.

They had such good chemistry together,
Michelle and John.

And this scene
is at the Warehouse in Chicago.

It was a club that we did get permission
to use. [chuckles]

And so this is a scene
that's supposed to be

at the Black Deaf Advocates meeting,
or, you know, social occasion.

So you see the little signs in there.

And the guy who just had the interaction
with Nico is Devon Whitmore,

who was one of our-- Or who--

He was our still photographer on the set.

He was from Chicago.

And he is a member
of the Black Deaf community in Chicago.

And then, again,
we use our little symbols here.

I use symbols from both African

and Indigenous peoples

to symbolize some of my heritage.

And this one is another reuse
of the same space,

just in a different location.

And this is Jen,

who was a performer here in Chicago.

That's my dad over there
on the left corner, his big head.

So he got in this film too.

And Bill dances
to an interpretation of "Compensation,�

the poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, here.

It was beautiful to work with Chris

to figure out how he could interpret
this poem through movement.

You wanna say anything about this scene,
shooting this scene?

[D�sir] I was worried about that light
in the corner. [laughs]

-[Davis] Yeah, but I think it worked well.
-[D�sir] It worked, yeah.

-It worked quite well.
-[Davis] Yeah.

It's like his body is ethereal.

This is my brother and his wife, Lee Ann,

who came to be a part
of the filming process.

[D�sir] She used everybody she could.

[Davis] Yes, equal-opportunity film making.

Include the community
and the professional community.

[D�sir] Yeah, I like the way
this tilt down eliminates that light

as she's talking about the boon of death.

[Davis] Mm-hm.

And the fact that we let Chris's ear,
his hearing aid--

We left the high-pitched volume
of the hearing aid.

And I also love
that Tyrone and his girlfriend,

note they start to learn
sign language applause,

so they raise their hands to mimic.

And then we were very fortunate
the Northwestern Library

let us take out issues of Crisis magazine

from the early 1900s
so we could have Malindy reading it.

And again, my little symbols in here.

I think these ones were for...

prosperity in life.

This is Sissieretta Jones again,

who showed earlier in the photographs.

And here she is again.

I love her look and how elegant she is.

And again, the importance of quilt
to African American community.

They're quilting by the side
of Lake Michigan.

This is up in the Evanston area near--
On the campus of Northwestern.

And this is Edith, who is a folklorist
and folktale performer from Chicago.

And she also knew American Sign Language,

so it was perfect for her and Michelle
to interact with each other in this scene.

And again, we pay attention
to class background here,

because clearly Malindy's mother
does not want her to associate with Arthur

because he's, you know,
quote-unquote "lower class."

He's a working-class person,

and she wants her daughter to be engaged

with only people who are
from a quote-unquote "better class."

[Ch�ry] Probably should say here that...

in the earlier title card,
it mentioned "old settler."

"Old settler" is a term used

to refer to both the pre-
and post-Civil War community,

Black community, in Chicago,

but before the beginning
of the Great Migration--

Certainly before--
Even before the beginning

of a lesser, minor migration
which began around the 1900s.

And of course, as in any community,

there are differences of class
and background and tensions.

You can see a little bit of the tension
between Malindy and her mom there.

Way less conservative than her mother.

[Davis] And again, images of people
doing everyday things was important to me,

that you saw that new part
of Chicago River does have these openings.

Here we're back at the Indiana Dunes.

It was supposed to be in Chicago,

but we actually physically shot the scene
at the Indiana Dunes.

[chuckles] And I remember getting
in big trouble with the Goodman people

"cause we got their costumes wet.

[D�sir] Yeah.

[Davis laughing]
This was the actors improvising.

[D�sir] I think my jaw hit the floor
watching this.

[Davis] Yeah. [laughs]

-[D�sir] This part.
-[Davis] Exactly.

-[D�sir groans, then laughs]
-[Davis] Oh, man. [laughs]

They had fun, but we paid for it later,
that's for sure. [laughs]

[D�sir] "Cause these were period costumes.

[Davis] Yeah, exactly.

Okay, I know Pierre wants to talk
about this scene.

[D�sir] This scene comes out of...

The building she came out of,

we were gonna shoot an interior in there.

It's an old building,
and we're trying to light it...

And I forget who the gaffer was.

It was this young woman.

And she was heroically running cable
up and down the floors,

trying to find some way
to distribute the...

To draw on the power
so that we didn't blow all the fuses

that we were running out of.

And while she was doing that,
I took a break outside in the back.

And I'm sitting there and watching,
and I called Zeinabu,

and I said, "Zeinabu, come here,"
and I pointed to the table out there

and said, "Why can't we do it out here?"

And it was like a light went off
in her head, and she said, "Oh!"

And she went inside
and stopped everything.

And it sure was a lot easier. [chuckles]

[Davis] Exactly.

And again, this was one of our contacts
from the community,

Ms. Roberts, who, you know,
really helped us develop

and get to know other members
of the Chicago Black Deaf community.

So we cast her as Malaika's mom.

[D�sir] I thought the actress on the left
did a very good job as well.

[Davis] Yes, she did.

-Karen Stephens, yes.
-[D�sir] Mm-hm.

[Ch�ry] And she could sign.

[Davis] Exactly. We wanted to make sure
people knew how to sign.

[D�sir] And this is Zeinabu's brother,
having a good time being on film.

[Davis laughs]

[D�sir] He enjoyed himself.

Did a damn good job.

[Davis] This is the only time
I ever saw John stumble in a scene,

because my brother--

He thought he was gonna have to,
like, encourage my brother

to figure out what he was supposed to do
as part of his performance.

And my brother came on the scene
and just, like, slammed-- [laughs]

Went through the whole scene real quickly,

so we actually had to take multiple takes
because John was forgetting his lines,

not because my brother
was forgetting his lines.

But it was funny to look back
at the script supervisor's notes

and see that she got frustrated
because, of course--

Because my brother isn't really an actor.
He's basically playing himself.

He never did anything
exactly the same way twice.

So it drove the script supervisor crazy,

but it made for a scene
that still gets laughs,

you know, some 30 years later.

And my brother's wearing
our production-company shirt,

Wimmin With a Mission T-shirts
that we made back in the day.

And again, another reference
to literature here

from Marc as the screenwriter.

We were paying homage

to Paul Laurence Dunbar,
and the young woman reading the poem

is the same young woman who plays Tildy
in the period section.

And that's her mother
sitting in the middle there.

That's Portia Cobb,

and then that's her daughter
Nirvana Cobb who's performing.

I mentioned that Portia Cobb
is also a filmmaker,

and she's based in Milwaukee.

[Davis] The interpreter, Bonnie Koss,

was also a wonderful resource for folks,
getting us interpreters.

We needed to have interpreters
on the set with us,

and Bonnie was real helpful
in making sure that we got folks there.

This is the same set as the period set.

We just changed some of the artwork
so that it made it more contemporary.

We still have the same futon.
That's our futon.

[commentators laughing]

Thirty years later.

[D�sir] John was having a good time.

[Davis] So one of the things
that happened in the '90s in Chicago

that did not get reported enough
was the prevalence of HIV and AIDS

in the Black community,

and especially how it affected
African American women,

and young African American women.

So it was important for us
to incorporate Malaika

as being someone who was living
with being HIV-positive.

That she still had a life,
she wasn't about to die,

but that she did have to carry this burden
of what was going on with her body.

And so we incorporated that into the film

to hopefully bring a little bit more light

and to have people discuss
HIV and AIDS in the community.

Because the film was, in part,
inspired by a dancer's response

to the loss of folks in her community.

One of the ways that I, as a director,
work with people from my community

is to incorporate them into my films.

And so, Asma Feyijinmi was Yasmine Allen
in A Powerful Thang.

And to keep her in character
while she was on the set,

I did have her write biographical notes
in a journal as her character.

And Asma, as a dancer in real life
in Brooklyn, New York,

had experienced a lot of loss
of some of her community

because of HIV and AIDS.

So that reflected
in her response to the poem

"Compensation� by Paul Laurence Dunbar,

and that's what planted the seed for Marc
to write Compensation a bit later on.

John Earl Jelks is my muse.

We write films for him, productions,
to use him whenever we can.

We started knowing each other

pretty much right from the time
that we started at UCLA.

He came with a friend
to audition for a film,

and he was supporting the friend,

but then our friend Iverson White
asked him to read.

And the next thing we know,
John is in a student short

that won lots of awards
called Dark Exodus.

And then John and I
just kept working together.

He's in my first student film,
a student narrative film,

which is called Crocodile Conspiracy.

And so I always try to use him
as one of my actors as much as possible.

Michelle Angela Banks was someone we found

after Marc had written the screenplay.

Marc and I traveled
to St. Paul, Minnesota,

for a grant panel
for Independent Television Service.

And in the evenings,

we were basically
trying to find different things to do.

And in the free paper
in St. Paul-Minneapolis,

we found an ad
for the Northern Sign Theatre,

and it had a photograph
of Michelle doing sign language

for a production of Waiting for Godot.

So we went to that production,

and Marc and I were just blown away
by her performance.

And we did the thing that
alternative independent filmmakers do:

We stalked her... [laughs] ...backstage

and asked her if she would be interested
in being in the film.

So Marc and I rewrote--

Well, Marc wrote. --the screenplay

and incorporated as much information
as we could about Deaf community

so that we reflect Deaf experiences.

I took ASL classes.

We started working with members of
the Black Deaf Advocates Group in Chicago

and incorporated as much as possible

about Black Deaf life and culture
that we could into the film.

Packingtown was a real place in Chicago.

Chicago was known
for its meatpacking industry,

so that's reflected in the series
of photographs that you see in here.

And also, this would be
very much influenced

by the great director Charles Burnett's
film Killer of Sheep as well.

So you hear the sound
of the sheep in the sheep house.

There's another homage moment
that happens.

Here's Marc again in another one of his...

-[D�sir] Cameos.
-[Davis] ...cameos. [laughs]

Smoking a cigarette, no less.

-[D�sir] Indeed.
-[Davis laughs]

-[D�sir] Shame on you.
-[Davis] Right?

I loved working with Maestro-Matic
to kind of get the horror

of the tuberculosis and the conditions,
the working conditions,

that Arthur had to work through

even though he's sick with tuberculosis.

So it was reflecting on what
that experience must have been like.

This was actually shot
in our garage in Chicago,

but we have that low angle up on Arthur

to kind of single out
how dire his situation is

in terms of contracting tuberculosis.

[D�sir] It was a very limiting location.

We could only get that one shot.

We couldn't move anywhere
because it was just a garage.

It was supposed to be a packinghouse.

But I think it got it across.

[Davis] So here we have Malindy
expressing her frustration

at not being understood
by someone in the hearing world.

And we also reflect that

with Malaika and Nico's relationship
at the same time.

And it's important to understand

that Deaf communities
have their own culture,

their own language, and their own ways
of connecting with each other.

I personally think, as a hearing person,
it's up to us to be more open

in wanting to learn how
to communicate with Deaf folks.

It shouldn't be the other way around,
that Deaf people have to accommodate us.

It's more like we need to do things

so that we can be a part
of their world as well.

So it's been really important to me

to be able to have interactions
with the Deaf community.

Hopefully, we've made some friends
over the years

and also that we've also encouraged
other Deaf filmmakers

to be a part
of this alternative independent film making

that we're trying to build.

In this scene, Karen Stephens,
who's playing the sister to Malaika,

she was very good at--

She did come from a family where...

She has a Deaf sibling, I believe.

And so she is kind of portraying things
that she's gone through.

And I think that's important,
not to kind of, like, gloss over that,

is to actually show some of those tensions
and what is happening

so that people understand
that we're human beings

and we're still grappling with
these issues and tensions in our own way.

Sometimes for good
and sometimes not necessarily for good.

So I hope that kind of got across

in these interactions
with the characters specifically.

[Ch�ry] Also in this scene--

Not necessarily in the scene

but in the actor's,
in Karen's, personal life,

she is totally fluent.

And Zeinabu mentioned
that she has a Deaf sibling.

It looks like, and it is true,
that in the actor's family,

once they had a Deaf child,
it looks like everyone learned ASL.

It is-- From what we learned
in the community,

it is not always the case

that hearing members
of the family learn ASL.

Unfortunately, it tends to be
the other way around.

There are some awful stories
of Deaf children

being forced to vocalize

or being sent to hearing schools

and their special circumstances
not being acknowledged.

So in that sense,

Karen, the actor,
brought a lot of personal experience,

which made her performance
better and deeper.

[Davis] This letter just absolutely
killed me the first time I read it.

And this is a tribute to Marc's writing
and how powerful it is.

It's so--
It's such a simple letter that's--

In the way that it's written
and constructed,

but it just, like,
has so much impact and meaning.

And I actually love to watch audiences,
because I've seen the film too many times,

but I always like to watch the audience
when they read the letter along with Nico,

and how it kind of, you know,
it's a gut punch,

just like it is to the character Nico.

And John really just did
an outstanding job as Nico in this scene.

He just...

Those are real tears, and he just...
You know, he just let them flow.

He was comfortable
to show a kind of vulnerability

that he had as that character.

[D�sir] I was a little dissatisfied
with that

because I wanted a shot from behind him,

to hold on the back of his head

just to let the audience
think about what was going on.

But hey, I'm just a cinematographer.

[Davis] This scene was shot
in the stairwell of our audience.

Mr. Ike is my neighbor,
or was my neighbor, on the first floor

in the three-flat in Chicago.

So it was fun to shoot here.

And this is the beginning of the...

what we call "the depression montage,�

where the contemporary characters
don't know what they're going to be doing

in terms of how they're going to make
their relationship continue, so...

We're going back and forth
between what's happening

between each of the characters.

Again, shooting at Legler Branch Library,

and then the stuff on the train,
on the underbelly of the train,

which, Pierre didn't shoot this part.

You shot the static shots,
but the parts that we're going to see

where the train is under
was actually shot by Rik Delisle.

These parts, Rik Delisle's laying on top
of a station wagon,

shooting up, and that's how we actually
got those shots underneath the I tracks

on the North Side, I think along...

[D�sir] But I shot these shots.

[Davis] Yes, you did.

[D�sir] I shot these shots on the station
and in the train,

-and it was quite an adventure...
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

...getting these, because, again,
this was guerrilla, so no permission.

[Davis] Mm-hm.

And we had to coordinate when John
and Kevin would be Tyrone and Nico

and then when Malaika and Chris
were going to be on the car.

So John and Nico are on the-- I'm sorry.
Nico and Tyrone are on the platform,

but then Malaika and Bill
are actually on the train.

So we had to do it a couple times
to make sure we could get that coordinated

so we could see...

[D�sir] What you'll notice is that
as the train pulls into the station

-and we're on Malaika and Bill...
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

...In the back-- Through the window,
we see Nico and Tyrone.

[Davis] Mm-hm.

Yeah.

Each film, I try to set up a new thing
that I haven't done before.

And I had not-- Up to that point,
I'd never done optical printing.

So I was fortunate
to be able to use the facilities

at the School of the Art Institute

to learn how to do
optical printing for this.

I also taught part-time
at School of the Art Institute as well.

So it was a good way
to kind of learn that.

Here we just wanted to show this is how
Malaika and Michelle, in real life,

watch TV, with the open captions.

So it was important to show

this is how Deaf are going to consume
or take part in different forms of media.

So we took short clips from the weather

and again, took a clip
from a film that I made.

This is from Mother of the River.

That's my short film that we made
the year after we did Compensation.

So I don't have to pay for rights
for my own film,

so that's why it got in here.

And then this is in our apartment.

And Nico's scenes are in an apartment

which was our apartment in Chicago
when Marc and I lived in Chicago.

And Malaika's is on the set,
which was at Northwestern University.

And this particular sequence
also has like...

I believe when we put it all together,
it's probably about 32 tracks of audio.

Spent a lot of time, like,
building the sequence here.

And again, we wanted to kind of reflect
Deaf perceptions of sound as well as,

like, what these characters
were going through,

to not kind of know where they were going
to take this particular relationship.

But we had, like, coins,

we did microphones with condoms
underneath water to get water sounds,

and we did a lot of clinking
on the sides of instruments

to get some of the percussive, like,
more high-pitched percussive sounds

to match the mood and the feelings
that the characters were going through

at this time.

You notice here, John starts--

Or Nico starts wearing
more traditional clothing,

and that's to reflect,
in terms of his spirituality,

he's going back to his roots, so to speak.

And who did this sculpture, Pierre?

[D�sir] Yeah, I made that sculpture.

[Davis & D�sir laughing]

-[D�sir] I thought that looked familiar.
-[Davis] Yeah.

[D�sir] I didn't get paid. [laughing]

[Davis] No one did, bro.

[Davis & D�sir laughing]

[Davis] Well, the actors did get paid.
We did pay the actors something.

[D�sir] Mm.

[Davis] This is kind of
a signature Pierre D�sir scene.

It's in Cycles, it's in Compensation.

We have these beautiful panning shots
of altar items.

And an altar is basically a sacred space
that you have in your home

that can be for a celebration
of your ancestors

or your spirit guides
or whoever you want to commemorate

and help guide you through your life.

And this is my mom, Dorothy Davis,

and my grandmothers, Geneva and Annie,

and that's my baby brother
when he was a baby, Kevin.

And...

we got some Cuban rum...
[laughs] ...on the altar as well.

And then again, Pierre's statues in...

-[D�sir] This is a different statue.
-[Davis] Yeah.

[D�sir] This is...

-[Davis] You did two.
-[D�sir] ...one of the male gods.

-[Davis] Yes. Mm-hm.
-[D�sir] This is Ogun.

[Ch�ry] Which Pierre made
specifically for the film, right, Pierre?

[D�sir] Yeah.

[commentators laughing]

[Davis] And I also want to point out,
we mentioned another person

who's important to us as a collaborator,

and that's Doris Owanda Johnson,
and this is her singing a mojuba,

which is a prayer from Yoruba

that also is recounting the ancestors

and our debt that we owe
to the ancestors you see.

Nico is dressed in white,

and it's specifically
so that he can recall

and reflect on whatever lessons
he needs to undertake

to go forward
in his relationship with Malaika.

Well, he doesn't know
if he's going to go forward yet,

but through these meditations
and incantations,

something happens for him.

And it was important to also kind of end
on those hands on the statue

because it's a static angle or uplift.

So it was important.

I absolutely love this photograph.

This photograph was
these two formerly enslaved women.

It was about 1903.

And I found that
at the Library of Congress.

I actually-- I just love the expression
that those ladies have on their faces,

and this one too.

Sadly, this stretch of beach
no longer exists in Chicago.

It kind of got washed away
due to climate change.

But this was the Howard Street Beach
in the North Side of Chicago.

And again, it's another altar.

This was the altar
that was done on the beach.

[D�sir] But this is back at the dunes.

[Davis] This part is back
at the dunes, yes.

-[D�sir] Mm-hm.
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

So again, this part of the film
takes a much more spiritual aspect

that's like,
does this really happen or not?

I don't know.

It's up to you, however you interpret it.

But this is Malaika and Nico.

Maybe in the future.

But it's very whimsical,
and hopefully encourages you

to understand the resilience
of these characters.

There's Nico on the other side
facing the stacks, smokestacks.

And again, these are photographs of...

Some of these were photographs
that were from the exhibition.

This is Ida Wells-Barnett,
activist and journalist.

This is a formerly enslaved couple

and the life they built.

So we give you some clues,

but it's up to you to interpret it
however you want.

This is the final scene
for the contemporary couple.

So the fact that we have this older couple
right before this couple... [chuckles]

...this shot of this couple,
I'm hoping that gives you an idea

that something happens with them
that's more on a positive note.

And we specifically
commissioned this... [laughs]

-...this flock of... [laughs]
-[D�sir] Gaggle of geese? Yeah, uh-huh.

...of geese to fly across
right at the perfect time

for Pierre to get the shot.

[D�sir] Yeah, no,
they were truly difficult.

We had to do it several times.

-Go back and start again, you know.
-[Davis] Right?

[Davis & D�sir laugh]

[Davis] Yeah.

And then the end of the film
follows through

with the end of the story
of Malindy and Arthur.

By the way, if you didn't figure it out,

Arthur is Marc's middle name,

so that's why the character has that name.

This is our beloved friend
from the L.A. Rebellion Filmmakers.

This is Ilverson White and John
interacting with each other.

Iverson is from Detroit.

He was an actor before he was a filmmaker,

and he's the person who cast John
in his first film.

So it was very meaningful
for John to be in a scene

where he was with lverson

because Iverson was the person
who gave him his first break into film,

through the film called Dark Exodus.

[Davis] And again, this is the same garage
where the meatpacking scene was.

We just-- You know,
alternative independent film making:

We repurpose and use our resources
as best we can.

[D�sir] And now we're back
at the dunes, and...

This shot was too much.

-[Davis] Why was it too much?
-[D�sir] I don't...

- I really enjoyed making it work.
-[Davis] Hmm.

[D�sir] You know,
catching him in the corner there.

-[Davis] Mm-hm.
-[D�sir] But for zooming out

and tilting up from...

Went against sort of
what I was supposed to be doing,

because it's supposed to be part
of the silent film,

so the zoom is not possible.

But I did anyway, and...

I think I caught him pretty good.

[Davis] Yeah, it's one of
my favorite shots in the scene.

The water looks so ethereal

and, you know, just has
this kind of, like, magic quality.

[D�sir] We were lucky with the sky.

There always seemed to be
a little bit of a haze.

[Davis] Mm-hm.

[Davis] The music also carries this too.

Reginald's, you know, simple piano notes
here really also give a lot of poignancy

to this particular scene.

And so Arthur has left the sanatorium
where he is

to come and give Malindy the letter
since he's been absent for so long.

[Davis] And we don't interpret this,

but you know that he's saying,
"I love you."

[D�sir] I like the roiling background,
the waves in the background.

[Davis] Mm-hm.

[D�sir] Yeah, this was too much.

[Davis] Yeah. Shot this with a polarizer
also on the lens as well.

[D�sir] Mm.

[Davis] Cut down to increase the contrast.

[D�sir] Mm.

[Davis] And heighten the blacks
that are in the scene, the resolution.

[D�sir] I remember watching him, saying,
"Please stay in character.

Please stay in character.�

[Davis] I still have
the script supervisor's notes.

"Quote: 'It was great. It was beautiful.

In other words, I got high.'

End quote.

Cinematographer Pierre D�sir."

[Davis & D�sir laughing]

-[Davis] I love--
-[D�sir] Like I said,

I could have been watching her,

but I was watching him
receding to the background, saying:

"Please stay in character.
Please stay in character.

Don't do anything." Because... [laughs]

[Davis] And again,
tribute to Marc Ch�ry's beautiful writing

in the letter--

The way he incorporated the poem
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

into the letter that Arthur
is giving to Malindy.

[Davis] Again, just make a note
that, you know,

there wasn't any cure for tuberculosis.

So unfortunately, most people
at the turn of the century

would turn to alcohol, whiskey,
whatever, moonshine,

to kind of take away the pain

of, you know, the hurt
or the pain in their lung areas.

And kind of ironic that we have COVID,

which also is a disease
that affects your lungs and your heart...

It can affect your heart.
...in the 21st century.

[D�sir] I really like this big tree.

-[Davis] Mm-hm.
-[D�sir] Laying there on the beach.

[Davis] Mm-hm.

Again, the happy accident
that that trunk was in the water,

and we saw it
as we were doing location scouting.

And the water as a healing source is...
You know, Toni Morrison's quote,

"All water has a memory,"
was kind of important.

And... we have this diffusion
with the filter.

So we go from period to contemporary.

We're staying period.

And we have the beach altar here
and white carnations,

which is a sign of purity.

Some people, it's a sign of death,

but for us, it was a sign of purity,
hope and resilience.

So we end on Ayizan,

who is a Haitian v�v�
for the healer and protector.

That was it.

Anything you want to add, Mr. D�sir?

[D�sir] No, I don't think so.
It was a great deal of fun.

In approaching it, we were trying to be...

almost Third Cinema in the United States.

We weren't trying to emulate
the Hollywood way of making movies.

We were actually working against that.

And we were hoping to develop a cinema

that would be accessible to the masses.

[Davis] We don't make films in a vacuum.
We make films for our community.

And I'm always trying to play
with pushing the audience further.

So that idea
of mixing historical evidence,

documentary film making techniques,

experimental film making techniques,
and narrative conventions,

I'm always trying to push

and make people see things
in a different way,

or a new way, if possible.

I think we learned that
because Pierre and I had experiences

of seeing cinema in Cuba

and going to the Havana Film Festival,

and also just Marc and I
going to Burkina Faso

for FESPACO,
which is an international celebration

of cinema from Africa
and the African diaspora.

Seeing audiences respond
to the visual language that is cinema

is, like, really--
There's nothing like that experience.

And so it was important to make sure
that the film could be reached

by as many people as possible.

So Marc is a master at making sure
that there's not too much dialogue.

There's just enough dialogue
to get the idea across--

Spoken dialogue to get the idea across,

because we have that experience
of watching cinema

of people from different
spoken languages, background,

but still being able to appreciate
the beauty of cinema

because you understand cinema
as a visual language.

So even if you don't know
what the words say,

you know what the intent or the emotion is

behind the performance
and the framing, composition,

style, lighting, whatever.

So those were things
that we wanted to make sure

that they got expressed in some way.

And my favorite part
about screening Compensation

is screening it with an audience

that consists of Deaf and hearing people.

Because we don't have enough experiences

or opportunities
to actually come together,

and when that happens in a live audience,

where people get to actually see
or interact with Deaf folks,

unfortunately, for better or for worse,
a lot of people for the first time,

I think that's making an intervention
between communication,

that we can reach and touch all of us
in different kinds of ways.

So that is and still is the mission
of Compensation

and what I think the film does

as a piece of cinema activism
or cinema intervention

in terms of modern society.

I was fortunate, as a faculty person,
I was able to get a donation,

significant donation, of film stock
from Kodak that we were able to use.

It was used as a teaching tool
so students would know

how to work with 16 mm black-and-white.

So we shot 7222,
which was the indoor stock,

and then 7231,
which was the outdoor stock,

the Plus-X and the Tri-X stocks.

[D�sir] Excellent Kodak product.

Does is it exist anymore?