Race and Cinema
With racial turmoil so prevalent in America today, it’s always refreshing to meet someone willing to have a fulfilling conversation about this impossibly complex issue.
Nydia Simone, an up and coming film maker, has a perspective that will hopefully find it’s way into the consciousness of the industry.
“Dope” will be screened during the festival, which I personally am excited for because I love high school comedies. It’s such an insecure and unpredictable period of life that film can do a lot with that perspective.
Nydia and many others are excited for the premier. “Young black people in Cannes? When are you guna see that?” Simone said with a jolt of excitement. However, she still believes that “Dope is not a new narrative.”
“We do have great stories but sometimes the same narrative gets funded,” Simone said.
Most early articles around the movie, whether positive or negative, seems to be race driven. It’s puzzling that in this era of film we can’t look at a film and just critique it for the quality.
Just like Simone said: “I should be able to say I hated Selma!”
However, while it would be nice to be able to drop the issue of race, it’s still so prevalent that it needs to be evaluated.
Simone believes the danger is “you have one story and people just think this is how black people are…it’s hard because Hollywood has all this money they can make it look enticing.”
Simone believes that “the production value needs to get higher…how about we make stories we want to see and how about we make them good quality.”
This is in no way saying that “Dope” will be low quality and it has gotten quite a bit of praise for being a fresh take on the modern high school experience. It looks like a relatable narrative with a talented cast featuring Zoe Kravitz and Forest Whitaker along side a cast of new young talent. It will be one of the closing movies on Sunday the 24th.
Nydia Simone is a producer and actor in the short “The Lost Book of Rap,” which is being presented in the short film category and will be celebrated in a big way with a concert in the front of the Palais on Monday the 18th.
By, Cameron Lui
