The world premier of the latest Spike Lee Joint, the Kickstarter funded, “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” happened Sunday June 22rd at the 18th annual American Black Film Festival in New York. It’s the first time the festival is going down in the Big Apple.
Black Enterprise was media sponsor for the festival.
This Joint is unlike any other movie Spike has directed before. But if you’re looking for spoilers, you’re not going to get them here.
What we can tell you is that it’s an artistic, cinematic experience by a genius movie director and completely open to interpretation. Suffice to say in this film, which is beautifully shot, by Dan Patterson, meticulously edited by Randy Wilkins and wonderfully scored, its “less sacrilegious to drink blood, than to spill it”.
But “it is not a vampire movie”. It’s an adaptation of the 1973 cult classic, Bill Gunn‘s, “Ganja & Hess“. Back when that movie opened it also had to fight the vampire connotations the whole way and “all the white critics hated it”.
RELATED: Hollywood’s Leading Men Talk the Influence of Black Males in in Media at ABFF
At a lecture at Harvard, Lee cited the film as one of his favorites, in essence the starting point for his contemporary feature. Today Ganja and Hess is being screened in London, Denmark, Norway and other European countries.
One interesting note on the movie score and soundtrack which, frankly, is mind-blowing. It was scored by the great Bruce Hornsby, with music by Raphael Saadiq. Lee wanted Saadiq to do all the songs but faced static with the record labels. So keeping with the independent spirit he put a call out on social media to unsigned artists around the world. 800 songs were submitted. Lee says he listened to all of them, narrowed them down to the 12 you hear in the movie. He played them for LA Reid with Epic Records and they assembled the soundtrack.
Like we mentioned, you won’t get spoilers here but here’s what the cast and production crew had to say about the film, bringing the American Black Film Festival to New York City and the whole Kickstarter thing.
Stephen Tyrone Williams:
Just along the lines of research even though they are not vampires, I started watching the earliest depictions of vampires and worked my way forward on all the different takes on how vampires are represented. What I noticed was how every filmmaker would take this myth, this folklore and put their own spin on it and what I was just trying to see from the story that we were telling, our take, was what was that gonna be and figure out the best way to share the story.
The question was about maintaining our endurance and stamina through the shoot. We shot for about three weeks, a week in Brooklyn, two weeks in Martha’s vineyard. More important for me was the legacy of 40 acres and the types of artists that have come out of that and the opportunity and the privilege to have been handpicked, I saw that as a challenge and I wanted to meet it. I wanted to help tell the story. I wanted to carry that baton.
Felicia “Snoop” Pearson:
Let’s just say it’s “Snoop” like you have never ever seen me before. Go see the film.
Elvis Nolasco:
Bringing the ABFF film festival to New York says a lot about where we are going tomorrow.
It’s always an amazing experience working with Spike. Someone I can definitely learn something from every second that I’m on the set. He’s an interesting storyteller and filmmaker so if you watch carefully you’re gonna definitely learn a few things.
About the movie, no fangs, no werewolves, just sweet blood of Jesus. We can’t give it away too much so when the audience is able to see it, they’re able to take it in and enjoy it in its entirety without having to hear other people’s perspective you can come and get your own.
The most beautiful aspect of working in a crowd-funded movie as opposed to a major studio is that it’s like FUBU. For us, by us. It’s beautiful to support each other man. And to be part of history. Like if you contributed, you’re part of something.
Zaraah Abrahams:
For me it was about making sure I studied the journey of two different people through a natural lens. When things go wrong that’s what usually molds us.
My focus was on being in love with him and growing to love him regardless of what he was or what he was addicted to. So I studied a lot of relationships.
Making the movie was intense. But we had the support of an amazing crew and Spike’s passion is contagious, it doesn’t break, so he doesn’t break, so we don’t break. It was just truly magical. It was difficult because Spike pushes you to lengths that you don’t typically want to embark on and that’s the whole trip of working with Mr. Spike Lee.
Thomas Jefferson Byrd:
The crowd-funded thing let the world know how many people respect Spike’s work and wanted to see his work manifest itself. I was impressed with it in Spike’s situation because so many people wanted to be a part of something and it was something good spirited. It wasn’t a case of people wanting to get a million dollars back, instead just saying they wanted to be a part of something big.
Jeff Friday:
Spike had the creative freedom to tell the story exactly the way he wanted to.
Malcolm D. Lee:
The ABFF is great. Jeff and Nicole Friday have done a tremendous job not only in moving the festival around, but providing a platform for other voices, its a wonderful thing.
I’m not in this movie. But, I can imagine that the resources are different between a Kickstarter funded movie and a major studio. But you know Spike’s a smart guy, and he’s been around the block. This is how he started out with gathering money and knowing how many scenes he had to shoot, how many locations he was going to use, who the actors were going to be and the great thing about him is, he does things on his own, he’s a pioneer and the epitome of the independent filmmaker.
I’m writing Best Man 3 furiously right now. There’s going to be some romance, sex, a wedding, and a different location. No the script is not in the studios, not yet anyway. It’s going to go through re-writes, the studio system, the actors have to read it to see of they want to sign on, so we’ll see. As for Morris saying he’s hoping his character is a little less sad this time around, well his wife died, he’s supposed to be in mourning. I can say, we’ll feel sad for Morris in this movie, but in a different way. This going to be one of Morris’ most funniest roles. That’s all I can say. No more projections.
Spike Lee:
All my work is valid. I wasn’t trying to get validation. I was just trying to get it done. If you do an independent film, you do it outside the studio system. You have more input and you have more control. That’s just basic.
This is not a vampire movie. Vampires can’t go into Fort Greene projects in the daytime. My number one goal with any movie is to tell a story. I’m a storyteller. Every time I do a film, I’m just telling a story.
When you do a film through crowdfunding whether it be kickstarter or indiegogo, you become an independent filmmaker not working within the studio system. It gives you a lot more freedom. Malcolm X was a studio film. Do the Right Thing was a studio film so I’m not saying I’m going to banish myself, I’m adaptable. So do not think this a film saying screw Hollywood, that’s not the case at all. But there are some films the studios just don’t want to make. No studio would have made “She’s Gotta Have It” and that was my first film. So it all just depends on what the subject matter is.
The message of this film is what you think you saw. I respect the audience’s intelligence, so I can’t tell you what you saw or how you felt. It’s art. People all have different reactions to it. I don’t tell people what the message of my films are anymore.
In the words of Bill Gunn, “Addiction in this film is a metaphor. Blood is a metaphor”. Like a lot of my films you can take a lot of things out of it and it’s up to the audience to decide.