The New Directors/New Films Festival will screen Justin Simien’s highly buzzed about “Dear White People” tomorrow at MoMA. It was just announced this week that Lionsgate & Roadside Attractions will distribute the film, so if you can’t make the festival, it is coming soon to a theater near you. 

Film Synopsis: The film takes place at Winchester University, a fictionalized Ivy League school, where, in the name of diversity, the all-black residence hall Parker/Armstrong is about to be dismantled. Racial tensions rise when Samantha White (Tessa Thompson) uses her campus radio show to call out the administration as well as her fellow students and Afroed geek Lionel (Tyler James Williams) writes for the all-white college newspaper hoping to expose hypocrisy campus-wide. No one is safe in the culture wars that follow.

Check out our interview with Justin Simien below:

Tell us about the film. 

“Dear White People” is a satire about being a black face in a white place. It follows four black kids in a mostly white, Ivy League college, it deals with identity issues, and race issues in a place where they are not really represented in the culture.

What inspired you to write this?

It started with my own college experiences in Chapman University, which is a predominantly white college. As I went through school and as I entered the workforce I just realized that this has always been my black experience and it always will be. I know so many other people of color who have had the same experience, so I thought, “Why isn’t there a movie that is talking about it?”

How did the idea transition into a film?

It started with a screenplay that was filled with a bunch of anecdotes and I worked on that screenplay for seven years. Slowly it morphed into being not so much about my specific college experience, but about the new American black experience as a whole just through the microcosm of this college. It morphed over time and became about something bigger and more real and visceral I think.

Since you worked on it for seven years, what was the process like?

You’re just constantly facing the demons and the insecurities and sitting down and going back in and making it better and better and richer and trying to tell the truth as best you can.

Did you have any mentors who helped you on your journey?

Stephanie Allain, who is our executive producer, was a big mentor.

When did you first connect with Stephanie?

She came on board after we made the concept trailer. I made a concept trailer with my tax return and and put that online and that went viral, that was when we caught her attention in 2012.

Tell me about your favorite moments from filming?

Definitely working with the actors, I loved my cast so much and it was just so great crafting the performances and seeing these characters come alive for the first time. There were so many wonderful things that I enjoyed about it, but that was probably one that sticks out.

What was the casting process like?

We had LA and Minneapolis casting directors, where it was shot, and it was a lengthy process and we saw a lot of people. One day, it was just very clear that these are our kids.

Any challenging scene for you?

They were all challenging, whenever you’re shooting on a budget, on an independent film, everything is a bit of challenge.

What do you hope people take away from “Dear White People”?

I hope people have a conversation about it. I hope people feel provoked into seeing themselves in a new way and into having conversations, that maybe they’ve had in private, in a more open form.

What’s next for you?

I have a TV project coming up and another film, which I look forward to announcing very soon.