Jamila Wignot is a documentary filmmaker whose directing work includes the Peabody, Emmy, and NAACP award-winning series “The African-Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (PBS), hosted by Henry Louis Gates and chronicling the five hundred year history of African Americans; “Town Hall” (co-directed with Sierra Pettingill), a feature-length co-production with ITVS following Tea Party activists determined to unseat Barack Obama; and, for PBS’s “American Experience” series, the Peabody Award-winning “Triangle Fire” and Emmy-nominated “Walt Whitman.”
“Ailey” is screening at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, which is taking place online and in person via Satellite Screens January 28-February 3.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
JW: “Ailey” is an immersive portrait of legendary choreographer Alvin Ailey. Told in his own words and featuring evocative archival imagery and interviews with those who knew him, the film interweaves the creation of a new dance commission inspired by his life to show the enduring power of Ailey’s vision.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
JW: I have always been drawn to biography, particularly of artists and the artistic process. They provide access — a way to gain entry into worlds, cultures, and ideas that weren’t easy to come by as someone who grew up feeling like a conspicuous outsider in a small, predominantly white suburban town in Southern California. With “Ailey,” I was drawn to more than just a desire to gain entry into a new world. Telling his story was intensely personal.
I was in college the first time I saw the Ailey company perform. It blew my mind. Here were an exquisite spectrum of bodies performing dances that reflected the ordinary, everyday experiences of Black people. I saw beauty, love, sorrow, grace, swagger, humor, resiliency. I saw freedom. And as a young Black woman coming of age in a country that seemed intent on not seeing people who looked like me as fully human, that night also offered a powerful and defiant counter narrative.
That sense of freedom and possibility embodied on that stage had everything to do with Alvin Ailey. As a working class, gay, black man, he rose to prominence in a society that made every possible effort to exclude him. He did it by making dances that embraced, celebrated, and centered his culture, desires, and vulnerabilities, and in so doing offered new ways of seeing and being seen.
The extraordinary wealth of materials available to build the story were also a huge draw for me artistically. Unlike any other film I’ve worked on, this film afforded me the materials to build an interior world of an artist.
From the earliest age, it was clear that Mr. Ailey was an inquisitive, highly observational spirit. He paid attention, took notice of the details, and absorbed those details. I wanted very much to recreate that experience, to visually show the kinds of experiences Mr. Ailey had in order to see the world through his eyes. Gratefully, I was able to harness a rich trove of archival materials of everyday African American life — house parties, children at play, Church, families at leisure — that have been gathered, preserved, and made accessible in the last decade to create this experience.
W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?
JW: Mr. Ailey was born in Jim Crow Texas during the Depression. It was a hard life, to be sure, but it was also rich with culture and love. Summing up those years, Mr. Ailey says, “It was a time of love, it was a time of caring, it was a time when people didn’t have much, but they had each other.”
There is so much power and healing in these words. Far too often the struggles of Black people take precedence over the day-to-day experiences that shape Black life, reducing it to an experience of lack. Mr. Ailey’s words and his work are a reminder of the richness within the Black experience: the humor, joy, beauty, community bonds, and culture that are a source of tremendous wealth.
I want people to be thinking about themes of self acceptance and self-love, the power of self-definition, of seeing yourself not as others see you, but as you are, and embracing that. I want people to be thinking about the boundlessness of Black joy and about beauty as a means of resistance. I want people to leave the theater thinking about freedom and what it means to get free.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
JW: Mr. Ailey’s legacy looms so large. We wanted to make sure we created a film that lived up to that legacy. The central challenge of that was to create a cinematic experience that was as artful as the dance works we showcased. I wanted a film that would inspire viewers to feel the way they feel when they see an Ailey performance.
His dances are populated with real people — individuals with desire, vulnerability, power, beauty, fears, passion, flaws, hopes, the whole complex gamut of human emotion. I wanted to create a film that brought the same humanity to the story of his own life, a portrait that would allow those who love him and those who would be introduced to him perhaps for the first time, to know him as a man and an artist.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
JW: This film was funded through a combination of grants, philanthropic contributors, and equity investment. Insignia Films secured early support from the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms, who have been long time supporters of the Ailey company and therefore were enthusiastic about our vision for the film.
American Masters and ITVS came on early to acquire the North American broadcast. This was significant for us as Mr. Ailey believed in the transformative power of the arts and was an evangelist for the arts and arts education, and we were thrilled that we would be able to reach the broad and diverse communities Mr. Ailey determined to engage through public television.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
JW: I know there are some filmmakers who have a single moment or experience that inspired them to enter the field, and I always wished I had that. For me, there is no single moment, rather it’s my endless fascination with people, history, and with trying to understand why the world operates in a specific way.
Filmmaking serves as an act of understanding. It allows me to put myself in the shoes of the subjects in the film, of the times they lived through. It offers a chance to reckon with the past or the present and to know something more about my subjects, but ultimately it offers a window into better understanding myself.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
JW: The best advice I’ve received is from Mr. Ailey in one of his public interviews. “One must be allowed to experiment,” he says, “one must be allowed to fail; if we don’t fail then we don’t grow.”
So far, the worst advice I’ve received was not to leave a job that had 401K benefits, but honestly the jury may still be out on that one.
W&H: What advice do you have for other women directors?
JW: I wasn’t someone who entered into the field knowing I wanted to direct. I came up through the ranks and for a very long time, even after directing my first film, I found it impossible to say I was a director, describing myself instead as someone who “worked in documentary.”
In hindsight, that inability to stake a claim for myself meant that I often ignored the inequities I was experiencing — everything from being paid less than male counterparts to being reminded of the “opportunity” I was being afforded in being able to helm certain projects. I don’t think I fought for myself because for too long I felt like the industry was doing me a favor by allowing me to be a part of it.
My advice is advice I’m giving to myself: You should go into this field knowing that it was not built for you, has not willingly made space for you, and is not currently inclined to make space for you. The industry, which is predominantly white, straight, and male will default to what it sees as familiar.
Do not let this deter you. This industry may not see that it needs women’s voices, but we know it needs us.
Most importantly, surround yourself with a community of collaborators who believe in your vision. We live in a country that valorizes the achievements of individuals and that shapes every part of our society, including the filmmaking industry. But you cannot do it alone. Films are not made by individuals, they are made by families. Build your own community. When you lose faith, when it feels too hard to keep pushing, you will need people who will champion you. There is strength in that so embrace it!
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
JW: “Losing Ground” by Kathleen Collins. Like many folks, I came across this film when it was included in a Film Society of Lincoln Center series focusing on Black Independent Cinema. From the first frame, which opens on the protagonist, Sara, I was hooked.
It was unlike anything I had ever seen: a depiction of a middle-class, accomplished Black woman in search of, and ultimately discovering, new dimensions of herself through the making of a film. What’s more, it’s a gorgeous document, every frame is carefully and lovingly composed. And the hair and makeup—talk about style!
W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you keeping creative, and if so, how?
JW: My edit room opened the same day that New York City shuttered because of the pandemic. COVID fully upended how I expected to be crafting the film, and yet the upside to it all was being able to be nourished by Mr. Ailey’s extraordinary work and his humanistic vision.
I’m now beginning work on a multi-part music documentary, which will similarly plunge me into a world of Black artistry, joy, and beauty. I feel grateful and extraordinarily lucky to be able to continue to make art in this time.
W&H: The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color on screen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What actions do you think need to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world more inclusive?
JW: Homogeneity of any form regardless of subject matter is failure and has to be recognized as a failure on the part of the people in power. The answer is to build inclusivity on screen and behind the scenes. That requires a serious commitment that goes beyond optics or fear of being “canceled.”
Until then, women, people of color, and the LGBTQIA+ community will do what we have always done: make a way out of no way.
