angeles, i'm tavis smiley. a conversation with amma asante, director of a critically acclaimed new movie "belle." this is a very impressive movie that i think you'll want to see. glad you've joined us about the conversation nust movie "belle" coming up right now. ♪ ♪

>> announcer: and by contributions to your pbs station by viewers like you. thank you. ♪ >> all too often in movies, 18th century britain is solely depicted in the most gentile of term, jane austen meets masterpiece theater. but a new film titled "belle" is taking a very different approach, showing how all that wealth and elegance were paid for by the slave trade. "belle" is directed by amma asante who won the coveted b fachlt attachment award for the most promising newcomer for her first film "a way of life," back in 2005.

it took almost a decade, though, for her to find another film that she wanted to make. let's take a look at a scene from "belle" which has just opened in limited release. >> we are to finally come out? but why? >> you understand the ways of the world for a female. elizabeth has no income. >> when all this has gone to her father, there will be nothing left for her. >> and any gentleman of good breeding would be unlikely to form a serious attachment and a man without would lower her position in society. >> she's not merely my cousin, mama. >> please. >> she is my sister. >> these are the keys of -- >> i cannot attend london without her. >> i am not an unwanted name. >> lady mary is too old to

continue in charge of the house. you may pick up your duties on your return. >> so i went to -- the studio is always very nice to me, to send me a copy of a screener that i can pop in at home or in my office if i want to. >> great. >> if i want to avoid the crowds. but i really want to see this in a theater. >> i'm glad and i went to the arclight, one of my favorite theaters here in town. and i was blown away by the interactive relationship that this crowd had with the film. i'm used to that when i going to to the black movie theater. >> sure. >> because we are very expressive when we go see a film but the white folk are usually more well behaved. i was blown away by the applause, by the cheers. the audience was totally into this and i said miss asante has something on her hands. it was a beautiful film. >> thank you so much. thank you so much.

>> it's a beautiful film. >> for me i always approach the film in the sense that it should be a conversation with the audience. like for it to be alive. there's a screenplay and then there's a movie and the movie is completely different animal. for me a movie doesn't become one until it meets its audience. >> well it was in the theater that i went to and i suspect in other theaters as well. i saw those -- this is inside baseball, but ai saw those opening week numbers and per screen, you were in limited release when you first rolled out. >> that's right. >> but per skrooen average, you beat "spiderman." >> i know. >> that's a big deal. >> we whipped "spiderman," that is my claim to fame today. >> yeah. >> exactly. no, that was incredible. we had a lot of people in the community. i call them" belle" ambassadors who were out there spreading the word.

you know, we had a lot of private screenings awell as people who could spread the word. we had an incredible screening. the naacp did an incredible screening. if you want to talk about interactive, that was interactive. >> i can imagine. >> it was fantastic. the word is spreading. people are taking their moms, their sisters. guys are being dragged to the cinema and coming out thinking i didn't think that was a movie for me and yet it was. i have a hashtag on twitter which is change the game. we can change the game with this movie. but if we don't go out and support moivs like this, we won't see more of them. >> what do you mean when you say change the game? >> i wanted to prove within a period drama i could put a female of color at the lead and it could be a box office success. that universally people would go out and see a movie because, you know, constantly we're told as filmmaker, writers and director,s, it's difficult to sell a black female lead and sell it around the world. you know, there are some

territories that aren't so keen on it. people don't like to go out and see that. and i wanted to prove that i female director and even more so a female at the front center of the piece could appeal to audience across the board. >> what do you make of the fact -- and i want to say this so you don't have to. it is a project that has black women at the epicenter of it, black woman directing it, black woman writing it, black woman starring in it. what do you make of that? more importantly, what should hollywood make of that? >> i think hollywood needs to stop and listen and take a look. i mean, i knew if i got this right, if i could get the story right, if i could get it crafted the way it needed to be and if i could get the right actress for this movie, i always had the

belief -- i always had the belief it could do this and it would do this. both as a woman filmmaker and a filmmaker of color, i always believed it. so i knew i was putting together something that was important if i could get it right. what i make of it is that, you know, we can do it. we can find those financiers who will put money into the one-off black movie. but ultimately, ultimately, we can keep giving, keep giving, keep giving. but if hollywood won't support and if audiences won't go see the movies, you know, then we're banging our heads against the brick wall. i always say it's a collaboration. it's a large community thing. we all have our part to play. hollywood has to be brave. audiences have to say not i'm going to wait for this to come out on dvd but i'm going to support this while it's in the theaters now. and we, the women of color, female directors and black

directors have to keep pushing at the door. >> i jumped in so fast because i know the storyline because i saw the movie. i jumped in so quick, applauding you and your efforts and that of the cast. i want to talk about the cast anyway second here. but because i jumped so fast, we should probably back up right quick for those who haven't seen it, since it came out and ask you a bit about what the story is. what is the story of "belle"? >> in its most simplistic form, this is a story of a biracial girl who is born a product of a west african slave woman named maria belle and a british naval officer, captain sir john lindsay of the when he finds her mother aboard a captured spanish slave ship, there is a union and dido belle is born of this union. at the age of 6, she is adopted into her father's family, so his uncle's family, who are one of the wealthiest families in engl england. her father is the lord chief

justice. next to the king he is the most powerful man in england and he and his wife together choose to raise this biracial girl as a lady, an aristoccat, high-class english woman. it's a love story, it's a romantic love story, and it's based on a true story. it is a sweeping love story about how she comes to meet the man she will eventually marry. but it's also a paternal love story. a love story between father and daughter and how this adoptive father, whose actually her great uncle, makes the choice at a time when it was unheard of, to love this biracial child. and, underneath, you know, it's a story that i created to have some hefty themes. so, it's inspired by a painting where lord mansfield, belle's u uncle, decided to immortalize her forever in a portrait where she stands next to her white cousin as an equal. >> there it is on screen. >> yeah. >> great portrait.

>> and also a painting like this where a black person and white person are treated as equals in this period is unheard of. so when i look at that painting for me i saw a combination of politics, art, history. those were the big themes of race and the subthemes of gender, equality, identity. all of those come to play in what on the surface is a very simple story. now against the backdrop, here is the important thing. of this love story, these two love stories, both romantic and paternal, is this seminal case. it's a case which comes from the slave trade. and it's a case in which 100 slaves are thrown overboard, jettisoned from a ship and drowned for the insurance money. now you could do that in 18th century england. you could drown your cargo. and we were cargo. but the question was, was there a reason to?

you had to have a legal reason to be able to do so. in other words if they were endangering the ship in some way. so the whole question that's running through the movie is was it legal for this captain to drown these slaves? now this case comes to lord mansfield to preside over and it's going to make -- however he decides is going to make a big difference to the slave trade in england. so the question is, is this child of color that he's bringing up going to have any kind of impact on his decision in this slave case? and here is what i think the movie brings that's different. we knew you could make money out of selling human beings, out of selling people of color. what i didn't know until i started my research and started to learn about lord mansfield was that you could make money out of killing people. you could make money out of killing black people. that's what i didn't know. so this is what is new to the story brings, i think. >> what's amazing -- there are so many things amazing about it. but one of the thing amazing

about it is the treatment that you give as the screenplay for this. it isn't didactive. it isn't proselytizing in any way and yet those hefty, weighty issues come to bear. and you get it because you feel it when you see the film. not because it was preached to you. and that's difficult to do with these kinds of issues. >> really hard. really hard. >> how did you pull that off? >> for me, it was always a balance. the reason i wanted to be a filmmaker and the reason i hung in there over those ten years between winning the academy award in england and now, was that i've always felt that the film can open the eyes of audiences in the ways that sometimes newspapers can't, sometimes news stories can't. you know, you can get people to think. and for me, what it was about was getting people to ask themselves the questions. kind of holding a mirror up to society and asking questions rather than giving a message.

i think when you give a message it can sometimes be off-putting in film. there's a time and a place for giving a message and i'm not always sure that it's in film. and so for me -- because i wanted this to appeal to everybody, you know, because in many ways this is also a good part of our history. i mean, dido was a very important member of the family but she wasn't an equal member of the family totally for many reasons, but she was loved. what she had to do was show people the right way to love her. and i think when you bring people into a story in a way that you're not blaming, but you're saying come explore this with me. as the filmmaker, come explore a story that i want to tell you with me. people feel, well, there's less guilt. and i think when there's less guilt, ears are more open. >> although i don't know how one could see this and not come down on the right side of the moral question. and i'm rooting for lord mansfield the whole movie because i want him to get this

decision right. i don't want to give it away. >> yeah. >> but i'm rooting for him the entire film because i want him to get this right because it makes a statement on so many levels, about his relationship with dido. >> his daughter, yeah. >> dido, his daughter. with his family, with the world, with his country. >> it's microand macro, right? >> at the same time. >> it is. and you know what? the very important climax of the movie, you know, actually involves all three of the main characters in the movie, the romantic love of dido, dido belle herself and her father. now we had to shoot that eight hours after my own father died. and and, you know, for me, whilst everybody was telling me don't forget this must abe love story, i always said no, it must be a paternal love story, too because i wanted to pay homage to my own relationship with my

own father who i did not know was going to die when i began the movie. so he dies in my arms and eight hours later i'm shooting these scenes and the ground is still moving underneath me. it's a different world for me. i step out into a different world and i'm doing this through tears but twa wha it meant was that we all came together in knowing that moment when lord mansfield is about to make his decision that this, apart from being this macro decision that is going to affect the world has to be a decision that is also about this father whose trying to just -- a man in many ways trying to raise a daughter and trying to navigate her through her upbringing and is going to be one that pronounces a value on her. so is he going to give this gift of validity to his child as her father, as hob is important in her life or is he not? and, you know, i'm honoring my own father in that moment and it was a cathartic moment for me. >> what pushes you eight hours after your father dies in your

arms to continue filming? why go ahead? >> because my father was an accountant. i have no member of my family that's in this industry. but it was my father who recognized my creative bone, recognized that i had a skill for writing and encouraged me to be in this tough, difficult industry, one in which i rarely see anybody whose my skin tone or my shape. and to be the tenacious woman that i am today, to be able to do what i do is all because of him. i would be nothing without him. and i made this movie -- i jumped on board this project to create the story and to create the world that you see on screen because i was trying to make the movie that i thought my dad would pay bucks to go and see. that my dad would want to go and sit in the cinema and see. and he never got a chance to see

it. and i felt that if i gave in at that point, because at one point, he said to me, i'm not going to go into the ground until i see this movie. he was very sick and he said this to me. but at that point i knew he couldn't hold out. but i thought somewhere, somehow, he has to see this movie. and if i don't finish it -- and he would have been saying to me, it sounds like a cliche, but he would have been saying to me, you have to do it. my sister who -- she won't like me telling her age but is in her late 40s and my brother who is in his early 50s, that night they came home, slept in my home and they said they were doing it so that i could wake up in the morning and the force of my father to send me out to work. and they did. and when i came home that night, they were there. and they sent me out to work. and i don't remember how i shot those seen scenes. i just know i did because they're there. and i remember tom wilkinson

taking my face in his hands and saying it feels like you won't get through this, but trust me, you will. you will get through this. i thought i was going to die that day but i got through it. >> so you had your own family love story. it is surreal, i suspect. >> yeah. >> to have your own family love story embracing you while you're filming the same thing with dido's family. >> yeah. >> speaking of tom wilkinson, i think i've only met him once and i've always had a great respect for acting chops but even more so or as much for the choices that he makes for what he will play in. he killed it in this film. >> doesn't he? >> i mean i'll come to gugu in a second. >> well, you know, this man that he plays is so conflicted. this man is sitting there with one foot kind of firmly in the now of then, you know, in the status quo. the fear of change. but he has this other foot so firmly in being a progressive man, in being a man ahead of his

time and these two parts are conflicting. so he's this man, the highest judge in the land. he has these big cases to preside over. and as i say just a man in the story. he's just a father in the story. you know, i was demanding all of this stuff for him, but k. dos to the man. i was blessed to be able to get him to do this movie and for him what was important was that he was a part of telling this story and supporting gugu's talent to rise to the surface and that was great. >> for folks who are in the entertainment business they will remember gugu from a number of different things. but i was just thinking as i watched this film that there was a moment where my friend j.j. abrams, did a tv series that starred her and boris kodjoe. >> absolutely. >> it just didn't get lift off. i was thinking as i walked out of the theater how about how

timing is everything. she tried the series. it didn't work. this movie comes along. >> it was waiting for her. >> oh, my goodness. >> i really believe this story, this history, was waiting for her. it was waiting for me. i think it was a form idable collaboration. i enjoyed every minute of it, but i was exhausted. what keeps you going when your father's just died? to answer that question it was the talent of these people that i had to help them complete. g gugu, tom, but my production designer, my cinematographer. we were filming this on the tiniest budget. their work, their blood, their sweat. gugu's work, blood, sweat and tears had had to be seen to be believed in so many ways. she has to be so complex. she's a child of a slave, this child of an aristocrat, this child of a white person, a black person, this woman of color in an aristocratic world.

she has to express to us her journey from girl to woman, her journey towards political awakening and her journey of finding self love and she's got to do it all in the eyes, all in the face, all while there's nobody else on screen who reflects who she is. it was tough but she's smart as well as talented. >> she pulled it off. i don't mean to suggest by this question that everything that a black filmmaker does has to be socially redemptive. one of the greatest songs ever written was a song called "what's going on" by marvin gaye. he sang "what's going on" but he also sang "let's get it on." i don't want to put that pressure on black filmmakers. steve mcqueen brings us "12 years a slave." you bring us "belle," you both have that funny accent. >> my what?

my accent? >> i mean, is there something in the water that you all are drinking in the uk? i know you live in holland now. but what's happening that these films are coming from the other side of the pond? >> i think we've been starved of the opportunity to be able to tell our stories. with kgs "12 years a slave" there was a lot of -- there was some talk about steve being british and this being an american story. i can honestly tell you in britain, we just think of ourselves as black folk and we just think -- you know, we don't have so much of that division of they're african-american and we're african brits. we don't really feel like that. we felt from our part the area of the world we were in was starving us of being able to tell our stories and by "our," i mean stories of people of color. and we are finally getting the opportunity. so i think the first thing we want to do is kind of rush to tell these stories that are about us and the things that we feel about, the things that we have emotion about before we can go off and later tell our comedies and, you know, all of

the other stuff. we want to get to the stuff that's gritty and is in our hearts. i wanted to tell a sweeping love story as much as i wanted to put a female of color front and center and a story that surrounded the part of the world that i live in, in terms of the slave trade financing this gentile society as your introduction so rightly said. i could never tell that sweeping love story from that period if i wasn't also going to talk about that economy and how it was coming together. i think we have been starved and we're finally getting the chance. so i think you might see more of this from us, because for each one that is out there, it's opening the door for the next one. i hope. we're hungry to tell our stories. >> you told this one brilliantly. >> thank you. >> i feel for you. i don't know how you top this. >> thank you. >> you're still awfully young and i'm glad you're talented.

>> thank you. >> you got a lot of work to do, to do better than what you did here. i mean, i floated out of the studio. >> thank you so much. >> out of the movie theater i should say. >> thank you. my dad always said you can't be complacent. you must never rest on your laurels and i'm not going to. >> i never do this. but with all due respect to siskel & ebert, two thumbs up. you've got to see this. if you see this and come out and your heart strings have not been pulled, check your pulse. the director of this film, her name is amma asante. the film is called "belle." it's a name you will remember. she is going to be around doing some good work for years to come. congratulations and i'm honored to have you. >> thank you. >> glad to have you here. that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching and, as always, keep the faith. >> it came into my head that i

have been bless ed twice over a a negro and as a woman. >> i suppose you have. >> have i? would not a lady marry even if she is financially secure? well, who is she without a husband of consequence? seems silly, like a free negro who begs for pasta. >> unless she marries her equal, her true equal, a man who respects her. >> announcer: for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> join me next time mikhail borisnikov. that's next time. we'll see you then.

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