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JUDY WOODRUFF: The documentary 
"Hale County This Morning, This 
Evening," about a community

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in the Alabama Black Belt, was 
nominated for an Academy Award 
earlier this year for best

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documentary feature.

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Filmmaker RaMell Ross, who 
spent more than five years 
making the film, gives his Brief

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But Spectacular take 
on the black experience 
in documentary film.

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It's also part of our of arts 
and culture series, Canvas.

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RAMELL ROSS, Filmmaker: 
We look at black folks.

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We don't often look 
from black folks.

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And the reason why that's the 
case is because the sort of 
world view of the U.S. is the

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white gaze.

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And so blackness is the other.

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You go into a black community.

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You don't leave a 
black community.

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I live in Hale County currently, 
been there for 10 years.

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I moved there to teach 
photography and then 
eventually ran a youth program.

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And eight years living there, 
people still knew me as the 
one who could help someone

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write a resume or help 
someone get into college.

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That role gave me more leeway, 
and allowed for people to 
trust me by default, before

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I intended or thought 
about making a film.

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I talk about the film as a 
return to home for a Northern 
black American to the historic

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South looking through my eyes.

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I'm encountering the moment 
in the same way in which 
you encounter the moment.

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I'm waiting and watching and 
participating, in hopes that 
something magnificent would

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unfold in front of the 
camera in a beautiful frame.

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When I'm filming Quincy, and we 
walk outside, and literally a 
storm is born on the horizon,

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I'm in the same shock and awe 
and appreciation for the moment 
viscerally as you are when

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you encounter it on screen.

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Making the film was 
the most profound five 
years I have ever had.

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No one has access to the 
nuclear family, the living room 
environment over the course of

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many years in someone's family.

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This is where the 
myths are made.

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This is where you 
learn how to love.

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And I was able to witness that 
in Daniel and Quincy's lives.

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If we weren't stuck in our 
first-person points of view, I 
would argue that most problems

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in the world that have to do 
with inequality would be solved, 
because we wouldn't be stuck

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in our single points of views.

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My name is RaMell Ross, and 
this is my Brief But Spectacular 
take on the centrality of

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the black experience 
in documentary film.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can 
find additional Brief But 
Spectacular episodes on our Web

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site, PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.