Boxoffice - July 2019

PHOTO © JON PACK
180 in that and you’re just like: What?! OK, I’ve got
to work with this person. It takes real bravery to not
just walk in one lane and say: All right, I’ve won an
Oscar. She’s making such incredibly brave choices.”
Rising specialty distributor Neon opens Luce in
theaters on August 2, and Onah is hoping people
go out of their way to see his film in a cinema.
“For me, there’s no greater community than when
people come to watch a movie in a movie theater.
That’s my ultimate sense of community. I love all
kinds of things. I love music, I love going to an
art exhibit, but the theater for me is everything—
probably even more so than church, even though
I was raised Catholic. Because you never know
who’s going to walk into that room, and there’s an
egalitarian environment that’s created there that
is different from just about any other art form,
because it is still a popular art. It was very important
for me that this was a story that people could
experience in a theater and as they walk out of
it wonder: Well, what did the person next to me
think? What did the person next to me feel? How
am I looking at the person next to me? Hopefully
a little bit differently and not jumping to the same
conclusions about who I think they are or where I
think they may be coming from.”
Luce is Onah’s third feature, following The Girl
Is in Trouble (2015) and The Cloverfield Paradox
(2018). How does he feel he’s fared as that rarity,
a Nigerian American director? “Look, it’s hard for
every filmmaker. Obviously, as a filmmaker of color,
I’d always been really
impressed with Octavia
[Spencer, above].
And then I saw her
do something that
was like, wow, OK,
there’s so much to
this woman. It was in
Bong Joon-ho’s film
Snowpiercer. You’ve
seen some of the
roles she’s done in
Hollywood films, and
then you see her do a
complete 180 in that
and you’re just like:
What?! OK … It takes
real bravery to not
just walk in one lane
and say: All right, I’ve
won an Oscar.
there are fewer doors historically that have been
open. There are still fewer doors that are open now.
But we are clearly in a moment where I think people
are seeking new voices. The challenge for me has
always been authenticity. I moved to America when
I was 10 years old. I grew up on four different continents.
My American experience was being raised
by Nigerian parents who were not American. So
there’s a specificity to my point of view and where
I come from. And to try to bring that into storytelling,
it also doesn’t conform to boxes that people
want to put you in or the lane you’re supposed to
travel. Luce has been a really gratifying and in many
ways beautiful moment for me, because it’s the
first film I’ve gotten the opportunity to make that
allowed me to bring my experiences, my ideas, in
a way that was uncompromised to the storytelling.
I can only hope I get a chance to tell more stories
like this.
“I was lucky to go to film school at NYU. There
are people from China; there are people who are
also from Nigeria. There are people who are from
parts of Europe. And I think a lot of us who are
young voices, who want to tell stories left of center,
are all trying to find a way to get those stories out
there and hopefully provide an alternative from the
status quo, which at times can be fun and exciting.
But I really do think to move the conversation
culturally forward, we have to have things beyond
just the most recognizable, easily digestible brand or
franchise that we’ve already seen.”
46 JULY 2019