Im a hot mess, the 36-year-old writer-director tells EW.
I havent slept in days.
Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent.
Credit: Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Im anxious, Simien continues.
Im anxious to see what impact it makes on audiences.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:I know youve been working on this movie for quite some time.
There werent very many.
There are a few things.
Theres an episode ofAmazing Storiescalled Hell Toupee, which is about an evil toupee.
1989 was also really the year the weave became a popular sensation among everyday women.
I didnt want to interrogate at all a womans choice to look the way she looks.
That isnt my place to do that as a man.
I wanted to get into that.
To be just as you are isnt acceptable.
Dear White People,both the movie and show, are very much not psychological thrillers.
Even looking at my movieDear White People, I dont even know if that make sense.
For whatever reason, that was the box that I was in.
Those were the sort of things coming across my desk.
Theres a poetry to these films where you dont have to exist purely in logical, genre specific framework.
I felt like I came alive again as a filmmaker getting to tell this story.
Its an LA story.
The other part is Elle, my lead, is just so astonishing in this movie.
She is a real horror girl.
What does the killer hair look like?I dont know how to describe it.
The words we were kind of using were, It has a life of its own.
It might have a mind of its own.
Did you feel creatively renewed going back into the writers room?Yeah I would say so.
