JJ Goldberger is a graduate of the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. As a second-year thesis student, Goldberger won the American Film Institute’s Martin Ritt Award. She was also the only African American recipient of a 2003 AFI Women in Film Scholarship. Goldberger’s 2004 independent short film Stone Mansion was one of the Showtime Network’s Black Filmmakers Short Film Showcase winners. Goldberger is a recent recipient of a Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media grant to develop a feature-length documentary on a landmark racial discrimination case. Tribeca All Access caught up with JJ to discuss her recent achievements…

Tribeca All Access: You recently teamed up with fellow alumni, Charisse Waugh, whom you met at TAA in 2006. Tell us a little more about how this collaboration was started.

JJ Goldberger: Charisse was sitting at my table at the opening TAA luncheon ceremony. She and I became friendly during the week of the meetings, and started hanging out. Once I’d returned to LA, we kept in touch. I had been working on The Bomber when I was accepted into TAA and knew I needed a writer. I was curious about Charisse’s TAA project Catfish. I emailed her and asked if I could read the script. She was gracious enough to send it and I really loved it. After I read her script, I knew she was the person to write The Bomber. My story was also “based on a true story” about a women who faced tremendous odds. I needed an investigative, curious mind and realized her background as a journalist would serve my story.

TAA: So you found TAA to be helpful to you in this process?

JJ: TAA was helpful in two ways; first it exposed me to some very talented African American and other ethnic filmmakers (and of course I met Charisse) and secondly, I met a Black British female producer in the Tribeca Grand’s Filmmakers Lounge who helped me connect to The Bomber‘s lawyer in Moscow. Had I not been attending the TAA what took a little over a month could have taken a year or more.

The news that Charisse optioned Catfish to Alicia Keyes’ company is HUGE. It verifies what I thought about her all along which is: she is a very talented writer and has a unique voice.

I feel very lucky I was able to talk her into writing this script. It took a few months of constant calling (frankly I think she agreed to write the script because she didn’t want me to call anymore.) Seriously, I believe she thought it was a really interesting story. Also, I had to agree to do most of the research (which I did). I even found a Chechen women living in D.C. whom Charisse went to meet with on several occasions.

TAA: One of the unique elements of TAA is that we support artists in telling any story they are interested in telling. What drove you as an African American to want to tell a story about a Chechen rebel in Moscow?

JJ: I knew I’d be asked about that. I see myself as a world citizen not just as an African American. Having said that, I am very committed to exploring the African American experience in all of its richness and fullness and not just as this “myopic” ghetto experience.

I am very concerned about what is going on in the world generally and specifically what is happening in Chechnya and Russia. There is a “news blackout” in that region. I think once Putin is out of office and if there is ever true “democratic” reform there, we (the West) will begin to hear about the decade-long atrocities that have caused death and mayhem to both Russian and Chechen citizens. I think a lot of my film career will be spent making movies about social injustice, because as Martin Luther King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!) I carry his words in my heart daily, that’s just who I am.

TAA: Have you found it more challenging to break through the barriers in the Industry as an African American, a woman, and/or an artist in general?

JJ: I think breaking into Hollywood is extremely difficult for anyone. There are few if any mentors and few if any support mechanisms. That’s why I think TAA is so amazing, because you actually support filmmakers! Even in film school, I found little to no support or mentorship. I think there is a big push now to include women and minorities as directors and producers because I believe the Industry is beginning to realize its good business. The Industry by its very nature is “risk adverse.” That’s why studios and production companies tend to get into business with the people they’ve been in business with in the past and in the past they have been in business with very few women or minorities. But as my father would always say, “the past is the past.” I believe now more than at any other time in the history of Hollywood women and minorities are closing “the gap.” I think over the next ten years, you will see women and minority directors and producers win Oscars and other accolades that have been the exclusive domain of white men. In my opinion, it is an exciting time to be a part of the industry.