Sundance 2017: Jessica Williams' first leading role; and a Dolores Huerta documentary

This is my ancestors' dream, is me — and the people that come after me, [Because of] the black women and the black people that died before me, I get to choose what I want to do and I think that really does speak to how far we've come and what everybody's done to fight for our freedoms. I know that makes it seem a lot grander, but there was a time where people that looked like me weren't able to choose what they wanted to do. I do feel really blessed and honored to be able to choose and to be able to say no. 

I wanted to make sure that Jessica came across as confident, but with insecurity. I think people have a lot of layers. I know I do in particular. I just wanted to make sure that there was a female-driven movie where she wasn't a slave to romance and she wasn't a slave to one thing. I wanted to make sure that she was complicated and dynamic and just a force to be reckoned with, because those are my friends and those are the women that I know and those are the women that raised me. So just wanted to show that in a young, millennial way in Jessica James.

"2 Dope Queens" is very interesting because Phoebe [Robinson] is a really amazing standup [comedian]. She's also a woman of color. So we are two women of color that host this live standup show in Brooklyn. We do it two times a month. We wanted to make sure that with our show, we gave people of color, we gave women and we gave members of the LGBT community opportunities to do storytelling, standup or music, because often times in comedy and in the industry in general, a lot of white voices are brought to the forefront and showcased because that's the trend. That's just us recycling what the trend is. With "2 Dope Queens" we get the opportunity to love and enjoy each other and have fun being best friends and being women of color and talking about our personal experience. Also, we give an opportunity to elevate voices for many different people that otherwise would not get such a large platform. 

The black experience for me has been very interesting. Some days I wake up and I feel really black. Some days I'm like, This is me. I'm black. Black Lives Matter. Black pride. Look at my cocoa skin. I just feel it's my being. Then some days I wake up, I turn on the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," have a glass of rosé and I'm like, I'm just me. I'm just me right now. I just sort of forget. Then you see somebody get shot on the news, a person of color and you're like, Oh, I feel black again. It sort of ebbs and flows. I think that's what's so great about Jessica James is you get to sit back and take a moment and realize that this person is black. And some days this character wakes up and feels black and some days she doesn't. That is, for me, a fully black experience.

Huerta: At that time, in the late '60s, early '70s a lot of organizations were just in formation. The Greens were just starting to organize, the LGBT movement was starting to organize, we had the third wave of the women's movement that was coming forward...



So, we have a lot of these organizations that were just being born out of the chaos of the '60s and '70s that are now very strong and they have strong foundations. So, in some respects, we're better equipped right now to be able to withstand whatever comes down in the next four years and to continue organizing to overcome and keep the progressive movement going forward.

Huerta: If you can take the poorest the most discriminated group of workers in our country that have been maligned for so many decades and yet show how they came together, how they were able to overcome the president of the United States — Richard Nixon, governor of California Ronald Reagan, the most powerful agricultural interest in the state of California — and be able to win their victories of getting the right to organize...



...so this is a message I believe, that I hope people get from this film. If those farmer workers, most of them immigrants, if they can do this without having a formal education, how much more can we do? We who speak the English language, who are citizens, who have formal educations, who have resources — how much more can we do?

Bratt: Dolores and I, we locked horns a little bit because I told her, 'It has to be about you.' And I think Dolores by her nature, she's always focused on others and empowering others, and I think that was difficult for her. But I think you create empathy in people and understand when you focus on the person. 



We knew wanted to tell a compelling, moving story that would inspire people, but at the same time we wanted to create a historical record, because she had been left out... you can actually see her through the decades, and we thought that would be very powerful and very compelling.

Bratt: It was tempting to throw the camera on and say, 'Hey Dolores, let's go back out and get some more footage.' But I think it's really important to emphasize and point out that the struggle in our community for racial justice... it's been going on for 500 years, man...



Huerta: And I just want to say one thing to that. People in our country do not understand how our country was built, and even now with immigrants that are doing all of the heavy work — which is one thing that the movie does show, feeding the nation. So, there's no appreciation, there's no gratitude there, there's no recognition.



So, I think the one thing that may come out of all this is that when we see the ugly face of racism and what it has brought us to in our society, that then, everybody has to say, 'OK, it's time that we end this cancer.'