An African-American police officer infiltrates an extremist hate group in Director Spike Lee’s new comedic-drama, BlacKkKlansman.
Lee’s film tells the incredible true story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), who in in the early 1970s became the first African-American detective to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Determined to make a name for himself, Stallworth teams up with a colleague, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), to pull off the undercover investigation of a lifetime, infiltrating and exposing the Ku Klux Klan during its plans to sanitize its violent rhetoric and appeal to the main-stream.
Following the August 12 DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Lee sat down with Director John Singleton (Snowfall) to discuss the making of BlacKkKlansman. Lee also spoke about the making of the film in a conversation moderated by Director Paul Schrader (First Reformed) following the DGA membership screening in New York on August 13.
In addition to BlacKkKlansman, Lee has more than 80 directorial credits including the feature films She's Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Get on the Bus, 25th Hour, Inside Man, Miracle at St. Anna and Chi-Raq; the feature documentary 4 Little Girls; the documentary mini-series When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts; and the pilot episode of the series Shark. Considered one of the most influential filmmakers in contemporary cinema, Lee was awarded with the DGA Honors in 2002. He has been a member of the Guild since 1997.
You can listen to Lee's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.