Media Talk
Tambay A. Obenson (interviewer) June 2012
As I suspect you all know by now (at least most of you) that Rod Gailes OBC’s Soft Focus – the winner of the second Shadow And Act Black Filmmaker Challenge winning script – will make its world premiere this Wednesday, June 13, at NYU Cantor Film Center, 7pm (tickets HERE), as part of a retrospective of Rod’s work.
The 25-minute film, which stars Damion Omar Lee, Angela Lewis, Madeleine Dauzart, and Aaron Clifton Moten (currently appearing in the hit Broadway play, A Streetcar Named Desire), is a portrait of Marcus, “… a repressed college student pursuing a deeper carnal knowledge to escape his religiously strident home life.“
The NYC event will be hosted by Rod himself, along with a few special guests. I’ll also be in attendance...
by Patrice Peck April 2012
Sex sells. The entertainment industry has confirmed this age old adage time after time. Yet as a subject matter, the aftermath of sex also proves to be just as stimulating, if not more thought provoking. In filmmaker Rod Gailes OBC’ short film “Earle’s Post-Prison Playdate,” the director and writer explores the ways in which sexual activity can often reflect much more resounding personal issues that permeate our daily lives —such as self-love and responsibility. Centering on a Black man recently released from prison, the film spotlights HIV/AIDS as the looming elephant in a room full of sexual hedonism. The film’s main character Earle, played by Richard Carrol, bounces to and from —sans protection—from baby mother number one (played by Pariah’s Pernell Walker) to baby mother number two (played by Fela’s Iris Wilson) to a male lover and back again...
Jillian Weimer October 2015
How has UNSPEAKABLE evolved over the 10 years?
Rod Gailes OBC: We've had time to produce the show, and our current production of UNSPEAKABLE is light years away from where we started with our original production. We had our first big change before producing it in the New York Fringe Festival. When we finished writing UNSPEAKABLE, the play was three and a half hours and had about eighty-six characters no producer could produce it! When we got into the New York Fringe Festival I whittled it down to two and a half hours and made a clerical error and listed the play at ninety-minutes. In a week or so, James and I had to cut down our mammoth script to fit into a ninety-minute slot. And, of course, opening night we had the New York Times watching which I kept that information from James--he didn't need to know.
James Murray Jackson, Jr.: Yeah, while Rod was whittling down the script, I was laying on the floor crying because I was distraught about destroying the play.