g gugu, tom, but my production designer, my cinematographer.re 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 mcque

and a recent review of the film "belle" i commented on a scene in which gugu, playing the lead, an 18thcentury mixed race woman raised in a home of lord summerset in the english countryside, stares into the mirror, rubbing at her face as if she might scour her color away. an image which stays with the viewer long after the happy ending is contrived. it certainly echoes the speech and voice of countless african-american girls and women. this very week we mourn the loss of ruby dee, activist, actress, someone who recognized the limitations and stereotypes imposed for african-american actors, particularly women. she spent a lifetime struggling against boundaries. looking at her emblem attic career, she had a luminous role in the 1961 film "raisin in the sudden," a remarkable performance in the miniseries "roots" but she herself commented on the limitations imposed on her during her five-decade film career. only nominated for an oscar in 2008 in riddley scott's "american gangster." i remember her amazing interpretation of one of the wpa slave narratives that she was one of the dozen actors