)
Peer Review: Akil Gibbons
)
Award-winning Strike Anywhere director Akil Gibbons' thought-provoking filmmaking explores subjects from capitalism and mass incarceration to hip-hop culture, and has seen him collaborating with the likes of Google, Goldman Sachs, and Roc-Nation. Here, he talks civil rights, human stories and generational shifts in film consumption.
Please share 3-4 pieces of work that exemplify great direction.
Beaches of Agnes, directed by Agnes Varda, is a recent addition to my favourites list. It is not only an incredible retrospective of her own career and voice in cinema spanning from 1954 to 2019 but also functions as an impressive teaching tool due to its meta-style of filmmaking.
I seek to shed light on and contrast the forces that threaten our humanism - often, ironically, systems of our own human creations.
It allows the master of the medium to explain how she approaches filmmaking through the variety of subject matters and techniques she utilises. The thought processes required to watch the film provoke viewers to tell their own story through film.
Trailer for Beaches of Agnes, directed by Agnes Vard
+ membership
Access the world's largest advertising database. With an intuitive toolset that helps you explore, present and collaborate more effectively.
Learn More
Lessons of Darkness, directed by Werner Herzog, might not be his best or most famous documentary film, but it’s one of my favourites. It showcases his unique but intense vision and voice as a filmmaker. The film documents the burning of the oil fields in post-Gulf War Kuwait. Instead of focusing on the war, he purposefully decontextualised what we see on the screen from real-life events. He uses science-fiction and unconventional filmmaking techniques to provide a surreal experience about the madness of man and war.
This particular film had a huge impact on me as a graduating political science and film student in 2012. Its approach was a big inspiration behind my thesis film, Paper City, which examined the effects of capitalism on one of America’s arson capitals. Herzog’s thematic question always sat with me: “Is life without fire becoming unbearable for them?... Now, there is something to extinguish again.”
Trailer for Lessons of Darkness, directed by Werner Herzog
There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is another one of my favourite films. It echoes similar themes of Herzog’s Lessons of Darkness in its examination of a ruthless oil man and the spiritual underpinnings of capitalism in America during the early 1900s. This film feels like an observational documentary at points due to its phenomenal execution of naturalism and the atmosphere of early America.
Both of my parents grew up during the civil rights movement in America and became doctors with the focused intention of helping people who were overlooked.
Through Anderson’s direction, he manages to show the explosive, hellish consequences of greed, all while revealing the cinematic beauty, determination, and self-actualisation that made America the dominating industrial giant in the world, in a way only one of the best film directors could execute.
Trailer for There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Your work is very human story oriented, what draws you to this?
Both of my parents grew up during the civil rights movement in America and became doctors with the focused intention of helping people who were overlooked. This is one of the main reasons my films centre on human and civil rights issues. Inspired by my family, I seek to shed light on and contrast the forces that threaten our humanism - often, ironically, systems of our own human creations.
Direction requires you to build an understanding and respect for each person at each step of the filmmaking process
What is one thing all directors need?
I think all directors should have a strong perspective and communication skills to cohesively pull a narrative together in conjunction with their team - producers, subjects, camera, post-production, marketing, etc. Filmmaking is a team sport. It takes cohesive action and folks playing different positions to achieve a shared goal. I love that direction requires you to build an understanding and respect for each person at each step of the filmmaking process.
Above: Gibbons' thesis film, Paper City, examined the effects of capitalism on one of America’s arson capitals.
What do you like most about the work that you do?
Being a filmmaker has been a dream of mine since I was a kid, going to theatres with my family and making weekly trips to Blockbuster. But what I love most about being a filmmaker - particularly a documentarian - is the adventure of meeting people and visiting places with the objective of creating something together.
Films have given me a window into understanding new worlds and a sense of clarity about issues I know all too well.
That shared creation aims to be effective enough to inform, inspire, and emotionally connect with viewers across worlds and cultures, all through the art of filmmaking. I want to recreate for viewers the experiences films have created for me. Films have given me a window into understanding new worlds and a sense of clarity about issues I know all too well.
What’s changing in the industry that all directors need to keep up with?
There are a lot of changes happening, from the recent strike in the industry to artificial intelligence’s ability to influence the future of the field. However, the main difference that I think directors need to keep up with is the modes in which different generations and populations consume and understand media and films. In my relatively short lifetime, I’ve seen major shifts in media consumption from theatrical feature film releases being the centre of our culture to that centre moving towards television and streaming.
I can see that my generation’s experience of going to movie theatres and watching cable TV has already changed.
Now, a new generation is largely, if not exclusively, watching and creating their own media and films, sharing amongst each other on new, non-linear social media platforms. I can’t fully predict the future of the industry, but I can see that my generation’s experience of going to movie theatres and watching cable TV has already changed. I think it is easier for directors to make and distribute their work now, probably more than ever before, but that also comes with its own challenges in terms of sustainability in an ever-changing industry. My personal takeaway is to remain nimble and open to opportunities for learning and creating.
