Me and My Emerging Filmmaker Award

Ya’ll already know when I was informed that I was the 2010 Emerging Filmmaker, I was excited. But then, when Can She Be Saved? won the Best Documentary award at the NC Black Film Festival…. well you could have pushed me over with a feather. I’m floating on air right now. I had to leave NC prior to receiving the Best Documentary award so I didn’t have the opportunity to give an acceptance speech. But, if I had, I would have said:

I wanna thank all the people who repeatedly have slept on my talent (agents, reps, you know who you are.) This award is for you. To my buckethead 10th grade English teacher who tried to make me repeat the 10th grade, well, I’ll have you know I graduated with a 3.8 from graduate school! Yep, so that means I graduated from college TWICE. To all the haters out there who secretly wish for other people to fail: stop being LOSERS! Spend your energy encouraging people so that you too will be encouraged. To all the young people who I’ve met and who’ve written me over the years, you inspire me every single day. No matter what you are going through, I am carrying a megaphone so the world will hear your voice. To family and friends — where were you this weekend when I got my first award? Gee, people, where’s your sense of community and family? Let’s work on that. To Oscar Micheaux, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, Gina Prince Blythewood, John Singleton, George Tillman- your work still inspires me. I wanna thank Ed Banuel, Tony Clomax, and Pete Chatmon for their feedback and advice on the earliest versions of Can She Be Saved? I love ya’ll for everything that you do and who you are.  And as I say on the outro of my web series, Every Corner, “See ya next time.”

That would have been one awesome speech, huh?