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Yelling to the Sky

Coverage by Nobuhio Hosoki

Story : As her family falls apart, seventeen year old Sweetness O'Hara is left to fend for herself in a neighborhood where her survival is uncertain.

 

Q&A with Actress Zoe Kravitz, Actress Gabourey Sidibe, Director Victoria Mahoney

 

(Q) : Tell me about the title.
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : It's a very tender, tender, tender sense of pride to show at Walter Reed. I personally appreciate what you guys are doing, and however we can change the playing field and get it to be level, so like if it starts with a brown organization bringing brown films in; however we have to get down, so I think you. The title is pretty much what it is. I like that someone wrote on their Facebook page "What's up with the yelling to the sky?

What is that?" and someone from your organization wrote back "It's kind of like 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.' You get it?" So the title actually came from when I was a kid I would always find my mother, like people would ask my mom if she was our nanny, as if there were nannies in my neighborhood. They just didn't believe she was my mother, so that to other extreme things that she endured. My mother didn't break down in front of us.

She endured these horrendous moments and she would walk with such dignity and grace, and I was really upset as a kid that she didn't fight back, that she didn't curse or yell, because I thought that was strength. But later in the night I would hear her when she thought we were in bed and she would be crying, and whenever she cried her head would just sort of go up, and I was affected by that. It isn't the sound and this little sense of yelling, it's this horrendous ache inside and sound doesn't even come out of your mouth.

(Q) : So I want to know what it's been like showing this film in festivals.
 
(Victoria Mahoney): Zoe, Gaby, and I all have a story that we could tell for about a hundred years about what it's been like and on that exact topic. I'm going to answer that because it's multilayered. One is what has it been like? It's been dirty and nasty and untoward. And it's been dishonorable. We have been approached without the same respect that my peers get. People come up to me and they speak to me about race and they don't talk about the 20 minute fucking shot that goes backwards from here down the block. Why doesn't anybody want to talk about that?

Nobody up here is trying to be a genius, nobody up here is trying to do anything. We have a hundred people who put blood and sweat into this film and we went out to find out what we were made of. We wanted to find out what was past the point where people say you can only do this right here and you're kind is only allowed to do that over there, little girl, don't you dare try not to make a hip hop video. We're like the European film? So what's that mean? You might have to participate when you're watching it or it's just not what you think it is?

But the second question you asked is how have I responded or how have I behaved? There's only one way to behave with anything is with dignity and grace. When my mother said "You get more…" look, now I can't remember because I didn't like the phrase, but like you get more honey with flies and vinegar, whatever the shit is, I don't even remember those things, I got them all wrong, clearly.

So there's only one way to answer because then you become that person, right? So when I sit down and someone comes up to me and says something about Tyler Perry I'm like come on. There are two things we have in common.
 
(Zoe Kravitz): Wait, what's the second one?
 
(Zoe Kravitz) : Filmmaker. I just felt like you're actually sitting across from me and asking about a film you saw – they saw the film! It wasn't like they just read about it – and it was kind of thick. It was like don't you want to ask me about Andrea Arnold? I don't know, because really they're handprint and thumbprint is more on it. There are some cats coming from Australia and Romania that I identify more with.

I saw a movie in a festival I was just in, it's called "Outbound" by a Romanian dude. You could swap our films out just as far as they way that we're telling a story, what we're interested in, just sitting and let people breathe, the way that this whole new generation. But for some reason, whether it's gender or color, I'm in some other place. I don't get to just stand with all my peers. But you know we're going to change that.
 
(Q) : You have an incredible voice and an incredible vision, so thank you for making this film and thank you for showing us. So Gabourey, this is your second film, right?
 
(Gabourey Sidibe) : Yes, this is my second film.
 
(Q) : I love your character because your character is the mean girl and I felt like this character was so different from Precious. What was it like for you playing this role and what does this character mean to you?
 
(Gabourey Sidibe) : I think this character is pretty psychotic. She's really, really angry, and you don't really get to know why. I feel like in school we've all been bullied or been the bully, and you don't really get a reason why your bully is bullying you. So I think she makes sense even though she's completely psychotic.

A lot of people think that I got this role based on getting an Oscar for "Precious." I didn't. I shot this before the movie came out. It was right before I went on the promotion track for "Precious," and it was really important just for me to do another movie just to know that I could, because I was a receptionist before I auditioned for "Precious."
 
(Victoria Mahoney): I'll never believe that.
 
(Gabourey Sidibe): You think I was doing something dirtier? I might have been. But no, I was a receptionist and I just happened to fall into some audition and in three days I was starring in a movie. So for most of the shoot of "Precious" I thought maybe it's just a fluke. Maybe I'm a terrible actress and I don't know it yet. And so it's really stupid.
 
(Q) : This is your second film and you're in a television series, so you're working.
 
(Gabourey Sidibe) : Yeah, I work. And my film, "Tower Heist," will be out in November with Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller. So I work, despite what people think.
 
(Q) : I don't want to beleaguer this conversation but you were the star of "Precious," so what was your response when people were saying oh it's "Precious" light or it's "Precious" 2. Were you just like can I get away from this film or did you see any similarities? What was your response to that?
 
(Gabourey Sidibe) : I could not have been more offended, I really couldn't. We wrote the film in Berlin, so it's a European country so my experience with European press is that they think they've seen one black person do one thing so they think every black person does it. They definitely thought that this was "Precious," and they also called it "Boyz n the Hood," and it's racist. It's racist and it's very narrow minded, and so I was really offended by it.
 
(Q) : Zoe, this is your first lead role. I know you have other films, you were in "X-Men" and you're doing other work, but this film you're totally stripped down, unglamorous, and very visceral, very personal. What did this role mean to you and is this the type of role you want to play in the future? What does this character mean to you?
 
(Zoe Kravitz): It meant everything to me. I've been calling this role a unicorn or a four leaf clover because you never see anything written for a mixed race girl that's not the friend of somebody and it's really tiring. So to see an actual character that has heart and soul that was actually written for someone that's meant to look like me was just a dream come true. And knowing that this was her story and the fact that she allowed me to help her tell it was amazing.
 
(Q) : So I want to open it up to the floor. Victoria, what's your vision for the film? Where would you like to see it go?
 
(Victoria Mahoney): I would like to see it go straight to the soul of everyone that ever observes it. We're in the middle of distribution and we're closing that up and then we're going to pick the date of release and then we have a theatrical release. That was a brutal path. People just didn't know what to do with it and so sales reps and distributors it's like they go into a file cabinet in their office and they open a drawer and it's like "Oh, baseball film about a kid in Idaho who's 12 years old; I know how to sell that."

And then he goes to his boss and says "Hey, guess what I've got, look." "How do you sell it?" "Right here. Remember the last time?" And then they go sell it. So our film comes up and they're like "Well how do we sell it?" I don't know; I thought you knew. "Well who knows?" I don't know; no one knows. Horrendously embarrassing, like really heinous statistic; this is the first mixed race teen protagonist film in the history of American cinema. This is 2011.

(Q) : I was doing this interview with Esther and we were talking about "She's Gotta Have It" and how that was a groundbreaking film. Then we got into the sexual politics of it and then we got into the fact that there are lots of really incredible women making films, but they don't get to make a second film. So where's the second film, Victoria?
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : I just want to tell you if you're a filmmaker in the audience that that is sad and true, and so the hustle is the hustle. Right before I went out and shot principle photography on this film I locked myself up in my apartment in LA. I hid up all my groceries for three weeks, I had no phone, I had no internet – I mean I had it. I didn't use it; I cut it all off – no car, no bike, I didn't tell anyone where I was and I sat down and I wrote my second feature.

The night that I finished and hit send I got on a plane, red eye, to New York, worked my ass off on "Yelling to the Sky," got off of a plane in New York, went on a location scout with Jed Dickerson, who's one of our producers and went off and running into "Yelling." You pick the devil you lay down with. And I did that because I knew now they mucked around and let me in the room.

I'm not standing still; I'm not going to let them kick me out. Nobody's trying to offer me a seat at the table, but I don't need their permission because I took that fucking seat. We're in pre-production on our second film.
 
(Q) : So what's the second film?

(Victoria Mahoney) : It's called "Chalk." We can't say anything, but we're going to make a really fun announcement soon and I will include you. I'll make sure you're one of the first people who knows.
 
(Q) : I want to say it was an amazing film and the emotional aspects of it touched me. What I really wanted to know was were there parts of the film that were completely improv? Because it seemed so authentic.
 
(Gabourey Sidibe): We didn't have film to waste. It was shot in 18 days, we had $5. We were in abandoned building.
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : There was no rehearsal, there was no blocking. We storyboarded, Reed Morano, the DP and I storyboarded the film front to back, top to bottom, soup to nuts. I had her in my apartment; I'd show her these horrendous scenes and things. Because I speak in emotion, she speaks in lenses, so we had to find a middle. We did a lot, we storyboarded the whole film.
 
(Q) : Wait are you saying there was no script?
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : No there was a script. We storyboarded the shots so that when we got to set she and I knew how many shots we needed, exactly the coverage, why we were this distance from someone. The interior of the film takes place on sticks. Whenever we're inside it's landlocked and it's claustrophobic because that's how she feels. And when she's outside we're running and trying to chase her because she's getting away.

So we did crazy shit and all that kind of stuff, and like the distance that we come close to her is like we have to earn it. And there's all this other crazy stuff we played with. There's like a lightening thing when we're outside of the house and inside the house that we calibrated through color correct. This is all corny shit; that we did. We gave them the story, I talked to them about who these human beings were, they talked to me, they all did their homework, they knew who they were coming, nobody was lost and confused when they stepped on set.

The best thing about doing a film in 18 days; nobody's sitting on a BlackBerry and iPhone on the side and talking shit about nothing. Everybody's in, nobody wants to drop the ball, so the energy is really exciting. It's gun and run. We had no toilets, we had no honey wagons. If they had to go to the bathroom we knocked on the neighbor's door and were like "Can we use your bathroom please?"
 
(Q) : You actually did that? You actually knocked on people's doors because you didn't have bathrooms?
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : For real. That's the mildest thing we did. That's the stuff we can tell. Gabby has the whole thing about the warehouse we squatted in.
 
(Gabourey Sidibe) : Okay so they say they paid for it; I do not believe it. We're in like the back woods of Queens or something and there's like this huge white building with nothing in it but a staircase. There was a staircase that went nowhere! And that's where we did hair and makeup and wardrobe.
 
(Zoe Kravitz) : It was so cold.
 
(Gabourey Sidibe) : Yeah, we also ate there, and we rode bikes in there once.
 
(Q) : Okay so what was the budget?
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : I will tell you the budget when the ink on the distribution deal dries.
 
(Q) : Can you give us a range?
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : I gave you a range; it was shot in 18 days.
 
(Q) : My favorite part of the film is the transition the characters had from the beginning to the end. As a writer and director what is your process? You told us your process for your upcoming film, but what was the process for writing "Yelling to the Sky"?
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : It was a 12 year process, and that's also what's funny about the comment to "Precious." I wrote this film 12 years ago, Sweetness was a name that people used to call me, it just happened that it came out right on the heels of a movie where someone had it. It was born long before anything it can be compared to. The process initially was that I was so mad artistically, and starving, and I complained about how shit the offers were as an actor.

And I had a friend who said "I'm sick of hearing you complain. If you're so mad why don't you shut up and go write something?" Now I'm a person you say that to and I will go home and write it. Oh you want to see? I'll show you. I didn't know what I was doing. It was like a poem; it was like an 80 page poem. It was just ridiculous. It was just so fun and wonderful and right on and a great exercise. And then you just progress.
 
(Q) : Where did Sundance come into this process?
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : That's exactly what happened was I got to the point where really I had no idea that if you go to NYU and to USC you enter the mob and you can work for the rest of your life. So I was proud of myself like I don't need no education. I enjoyed being self-taught; I did not want to go to school and have someone jam down my throat the reasons why I should make a "Citizen Kane Part Two."

I don't want to make "Citizen Kane Part Two." He got down in the ground and dug that hole because he was going to die. So everyone else is now "I want to go deeper in the ground," but you're just trying to outdo Orson. How about you just do your own shit? He didn't do that because it was cool. He had a shot in his skull when he closed his eyes and he couldn't live without that shot, and he did it. So I want my own version of that.

I don't want my version of somebody else's shit. Really there was no support, no community, and one day I just hit a wall and I was like I need some help. And then Sundance Institute someone told me to apply and I was like I'll go to the filmmaking lab; I'm not going to the screenwriting lab. Stupid. I got rejected and then I wanted it badly, and then I got in and they took care of me and they taught me just the basics. They don't teach you how to write they just ask you what is it you want to say? And when you say that they say "Well I hear what you want to say, but that's not on paper. That's not here at all."

They just help you get what you want to say onto paper. They don't shape you and mold you, they leave you alone. The more original you are the better, the more authentic you are they just love it. The more unique your vision and perspective. And they do this not because it's fun, they do it because they're concerned about the murdering of the independent filmmaker. So they're bringing people like us up with leaving us alone so that the corporate components of the film industry don't slaughter our eyesight.
 
(Q) : I know you touched on the budget but can you really tell us what the budget was and did you have investors and what that process was like?
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : Okay so the funny thing is like I love New York so much. She said "I know you touched on it but could you just tell us?" It's going to be loud; you're going to know. Clearly I'm not shy about stuff so I'm going to tell you when I can appropriately tell you. This isn't withholding because it's a secret, it's withholding because we don't want to get robbed at the business table. But the process of financing is just so horrendous. There's nothing pleasant about it and if you're a writer/director and you're out in the world now you have to sit in a room to get financing.
 
(Q) : I wanted to know how welcoming the community was where you shot because I am having difficulties finding a great place to shoot. So I wanted to know how difficult it was for you to find the locations and get permission and how welcoming the neighborhood was for you.
 
(Zoe Kravitz) : I did not feel not welcomed. Except when we were shot at. There was actual gunfire that was not so welcoming.
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : But it wasn't at us, it was just life going on around us. We shot primarily in Hollis, in Run-DMC town.
 
(Zoe Kravitz) : And I was really scared and Victoria tried to keep on shooting.
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : I had to make my day. Not only was New York welcoming to us like people were kind, they let us in their homes and their bathrooms, and I had no problems. We shot from Bushwick to Harlem to New Jersey on like a jankey motel on the highway, whatever. We shot everywhere. Nobody said "Will you leave please?" People were like "Hey, can I help?" People are happy to be represented.
 
(Q) : I love the movie, but the other reason why I wanted to show this film is because it was by a woman of color. We had not shown a woman yet this year and we said we've got to get a sister up in the mix like now. And so when this film came I was like thank you, obviously this is the one I'm supposed to show. I noticed that most of the questions have come from women filmmakers, so I'm really happy that the sisters are getting inspired.

I want to know from Gabourey and Zoë, you've both worked with men directors and you've worked with Victoria, so what's the difference? What's it like when you're working on this girl power, sister energy set? What was it like working with a woman director versus a male director? And then after you tell me that tell me whatever else you want to tell me, because we're going to end the Q&A.
 
(Gabourey Sidibe) : I've worked with mostly male directors, even on "The Big C." We shoot 13 episodes, we get about six or seven directors, and of those six or seven directors there are like two women. And what I've learned, and before it was only my second director, women just care more about the project in a way.

They care about the actors, they care about the story, and I've learned that men care about whether or not you think they're a man. Women will help you understand why your character is doing what it's doing and really help you understand what you're doing and why you're doing it, whereas a male director just wants you to do it. "Baby, just do it!" That's the difference.
 
(Zoe Kravitz) : That is pretty right on. There's a certain amount of sensitivity that a woman has, especially when you're playing her.
 
(Q) : And you felt like you were playing her?
 
(Zoe Kravitz) : Yes. I was playing her.
 
(Q) : I knew it was inspired by your life but I didn't know if it was your life exactly, like verbatim.
 
(Victoria Mahoney) : Well it's semi-autobiographical. My life was a little bit worse than this. The soft parts in this weren't entirely true.
 
(Q) : I wanted Elevator Fight to perform tonight.
 
(Zoe Kravitz) : I would have said no. Just because I feel like my band playing at my movie is just too good. But we'll play anywhere; we'll play in someone's kitchen if you'll let us do it. The Johnny Cash cover is my band in this movie.
 
(Q) : Can you tell the audience a bit about Elevator Fight?
 
(Zoe Kravitz) : We have a record that we just finished called "Post Empire," and we're trying to figure out how to put it out because we don't want to fuck with labels.
 
(Q) : And what genre is Elevator Fight?

(Zoe Kravitz): I don't know what it is. I'm so bad at describing music. It's rock.
 
(Q) : She fronts the band.

(Zoe Kravitz): And I play the tambourine super hard. You can hear some of our new record on bandcamp.com, and once the record gets out you should have it. You should check our Facebook because we're going to be playing a lot in September.

 

End.