OWC RADiO – Charles Burnett, Academy Award Winning Filmmaker
Today’s show features a conversation with Charles Burnett, who Martin Scorsese and Steven Soderbergh credit as one of America’s greatest filmmakers. His creative works tell personal and intimate stories – exploration of culture, relationships, social justice, mental illness, discrimination, and love. He was born in Mississippi in 1944 but moved to Watts in South Los Angeles in 1947. “Killer of Sheep,” based on his life in Watts, was his student thesis film at UCLA but it wasn’t until he was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 2017 that it began to be seen. It was his first full-length feature and took five years to complete, and it set him apart, even at a young age, as a great filmmaker.
The ’60s were not necessarily kind to Black filmmakers and complicated music rights kept “Killer of Sheep” away from wide distribution until Steven Soderberg took it under his wing and helped restore it. He also cleared the music rights and found distribution. It has since been admitted into the Library of Congress and called a national treasure.
Other films from Charles include “The Annihilation of Fish” with James Earl Jones and Lynn Redgrave; My Brother’s Wedding, The Glass Shield, and To Sleep With Anger starring Danny Glover.
Martin Scorcese was quoted in a review by Daniel Borrero, saying, “Charles Burnett is one of the finest filmmakers in this country. His pictures speak in a unique voice that is uniquely and completely his own.”
I am honored to be speaking with Charles Burnett and am grateful for his candor about the industry and his gracious depiction of unfolding events in his life. We can all learn from him.
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ABOUT OUR HOST: Filmmaker Cirina Catania, the Co-Founder and prior Executive Director of the Sundance Film Festival, and Founder and Lead Creative at The Catania Group Global, has been involved as a writer, director, producer, cinematographer or marketing exec on over 150 film, television and new media projects for the big screen as well as for networks such as National Geographic, Discovery, etc. She was a senior executive at MGM-UA and United Artists and is a member of the WGA-West, the PGA, IATSE Local 600, NPPA, the National Press Club, and more. Cirina lives in San Diego, D.C. and Berlin when she is not on the road filming for her projects or for clients, or speaking as a tech evangelist for companies such as Blackmagic Design and Lumberjack System. Cirina is the Founder and Executive Director of the High Media Collective (HSMC) a national nonprofit with top industry mentors bringing media literacy and new career pathways to classrooms across the country.