SCREENWRITER AND DIRECTOR DEE REES TALKS TO CARRIE LYELL ABOUT RACISM IN AMERICA AND HER OSCAR-TIPPED FEATURE FILM MUDBOUND
PHOTOS MATHIEU YOUNG, NETFLIX/STEVE DIETL
Dee Rees is a busy woman. I’m sat in a fancy hotel room in central London, waiting for the screenwriter and director to finish her umpteenth interview of the day, hoping that my questions aren’t ones she’s already been asked. When she finishes with the call, and I’m ushered through to meet her, I’m expecting her to be grouchy, tired, standoffish. I’m her last interview before she jets off to Italy. But she’s none of those things. When she smiles, it’s warm and it’s kind. This is going to be a good one, I think to myself.
The 40-year-old from Nashville, Tennessee has quietly been smashing stereotypes in Hollywood since 2007, when her short film Pariah made rather large ripples at film festivals around the world. Bessie, which starred Queen Latifah, was also warmly received, picking up a handful of awards, including four Primetime Emmys. Now she’s set to turn those ripples into waves with Mudbound, an epic story of family, friendship, racial hatred and struggle set in the post-WWII South, and based on the novel of the same name by Hillary Jordan, which Netflix bought at Sundance for $12.5 million.