“Red Tails” director Anthony Hemingway has experience connecting with a younger audience. Before taking on George Lucas’s passion project about the Tuskegee Airmen, Hemingway worked on HBO’s acclaimed series “The Wire” and is now behind the camera on “Treme.”
The Hollywood Black Film Festival Travel Guide
However, there is always a challenge in presenting historic topics on the big screen. A self-professed “realist” Hemingway spoke to Moviefone.com about the challenges he may face in selling younger viewers on a movie about Black fighter pilots in the 1940′s.
What’s the toughest challenge you have selling “Red Tails” to contemporary young audiences?
Trying to target a younger audience is challenging because I know this a story that they don’t know about. Growing up, I didn’t really know who the Tuskegee Airmen were. I knew that they existed, but I didn’t know their history until that HBO movie came out in ’95. That’s where it began for me, I wanted to know more. But just trying to find ways to connect with kids: if I check out, then it’s not working … That’s the trick, ’cause so many people would quickly check out when you’re talking about war stories. But to turn this around and make it about heroics and heroes was very cool.
RELATED POSTS:
Is “Red Tails” The Black “Star Wars”? [EXCLUSIVE]
Terrence Howard And Cuba Gooding Jr. Show Man Love [PHOTOS]
“Red Tails” Is Putting Black Filmmakers In Jeopardy
