How did “Really Love” come about?
Felicia Pride, my co creative and collaborative is also from Baltimore. She and I were introduced by a mutual friend and we just started chatting casually. I was excited to meet another sister in LA, who’s from Baltimore. She told me that she had written her first screenplay and that she was looking for a director to attach to it. The way she described it was just so magical. She described it as a Love Jones meets Blue Valentine set in D.C. And I said, “Can I please read it?” So she sent me the script, I read it immediately, we had dinner and she says, “I watched your shorts, I want you to direct the film.”
How did you both pull it off?
Felicia and I were working full-time jobs. We developed the screenplay for an additional two years and then we pitched it to MACRO and they loved it. Charles King and the whole team there were like, “We believe in this, we support it, and we want to fully finance it.” So, it’s kind of like a real Hollywood story. They were the only company that we pitched it to, but they got it. They connected with it. Charles went to Howard, it has a big presence in the film. They just were like, “We want in, how can we be a part? So, we made the film a year later.
