This photo was taken during my first year at Cornell University. I had wanted to go to a college that had a strong performing arts program, especially in Dance because I loved modern dance and had a penchant for choreography, but my mother insisted that I go to an Ivy League if I wanted my tuition to be paid for—I ended up paying for it anyway, but that’s another story. Even at Cornell, I couldn’t escape my artist nature and ended up majoring in theatre arts including directing for the stage. I minored in cultural anthropology. Then out of the blue, Cornell hired a filmmaking Professor who introduced us to the wonder and magic of filmmaking. I took a year in Absentia at NYU to study acting at Circle in The Square. I decided to take a course in film theory too. The class was late at night in a basement classroom at Tisch Hall. It was the films of Nicolas Roeg, with their layered visual storytelling evoking the mystery of our existence, that appeared to me as a mirror showing me who I really was—a filmmaker. I had pricked my finger on a spool of film, and just like sleeping beauty, I woke up to my destiny. I had no idea what I would be up against and the trials and tribulations I would experience as a woman filmmaker in a highly competitive white man’s world. And even if I did know, it would not have stopped me. It could not stop me.
