Jan Schmidt, Interviewer, May 14, 2014
SCHMIDT
Where did this idea come from for your seven-minute short film I Held Him?
AUGUSTAVE
What happened with I Held Him specifically was that I was going through a breakup, and I remember at one point feeling—what was I doing? I was feeling how you feel after breakups. It’s the end of the world and you have nobody.
I was going through Instagram and I saw an image of a mother holding her child, and I thought, “Oh, man, that would feel really good right now to be held.” Then I started thinking that women and maybe queer men have access to this platonic physical energy that straight men don’t have access to and I wondered if there existed images or film that shows it or that makes it accessible for us.
So I went down this path of looking for those images. I found some images of young boys holding each other or a father and son holding each other, but usually it was in time of grief, like at a death, or if they were men, oftentimes it was through a queer lens, which is fine, but not exactly what I was looking for. But here and there I would find some, but it wasn’t as prevalent as two women holding each other just to say, “I love you.”
I was posting these pictures and stories, doing this thing about Black men hold each other, Black men love each other, Black men console each other. My first short film had come out at the end of the year before, so people who saw that film were saying, “You should make something out of these images, some kind of short film.”
And I said, “Yeah, I think I’m moving in that direction.” And in the back of my brain somewhere, I decided. “Okay, maybe I’ll do something about men holding each other.”
A few months later, my friend called me and he was going through a breakup. He said, “Oh, man, I’m so sad and I want to talk to someone.”
I said, “Why don’t you just come over to my place. I know how it is. Sometimes you just want someone to be in the room, but you don’t really want to talk. Whatever you want. We can not talk about it; we can talk about it. Come over and I’ll be here so you’re not alone.”
He came over and we were talking about everything but that. Then we talked about it a little bit. He said, “I just want to be—I wish I was just home with my mom.”
And I remembered the feeling of me wanting to be held by my mom, and I thought, “Wait. I’m all about this journey of men holding each other, and I’m here with a man who needs to be held.” So just like in the short, I sat on the couch and I said, “Hey, why don’t you put your head on my lap.”
He said, “Yeah?”
“Yeah, come here and I can hold you.” It was just as awkward as it was in the short film, which is what I wanted to really communicate. It was awkward, but it was beautiful. Then maybe a week later, I wrote down that poem, which is what became the film.
SCHMIDT
It’s really beautiful and powerful as each of the films that I’ve seen of yours. But one of the things that struck me was the silence, that you happen to be a deejay and you have a film of silence mostly. What does that mean to you, and how did you come to that?
AUGUSTAVE
There’s a quote, “Silence says what words can’t.” I’m paraphrasing, but I’m sure it’s pretty close. I love stillness and I love silence. One of my favorite directors who uses stillness and silence a lot is Steve McQueen, especially in his earlier work. He teaches you—he forces you as an audience member— to be there with the moment, as awkward as it feels, as difficult as it is, as beautiful as it is. In American cinema and life, we don’t take enough time to breathe and stay in the moment. For this film in particular, I wanted the audience member to ask themselves—because it goes to a place where you start to question—are these guys gay? Everyone does. And I wanted the audience member to sit with that question, and then when you come to the realization that it’s not a homoerotic film, you start to ask yourself, “Why did I think that that’s where this had to go?”
I could’ve written, “Oh, I felt awkward and this was weird,” and then they talk about it, but that’s not what happened, and I think it says what can’t be said in words, really.
SCHMIDT
And you could have had music behind it. But that would also take away from that awkwardness. And it’s interesting, too, that all people—men and women—have feelings of grief and the sadness that comes with letting go of someone, so there’s a universal quality to this film, as well as being specific to men, and not just men, but Black men. So what’s your background? Where’d you grow up? How did you end up being a deejay and a filmmaker?
AUGUSTAVE
My blood is 100 percent Haitian, but I was born in France. We moved to the U.S. when I was four, lived in Jersey, but I went to school in Manhattan to the Lycée Français, which is a snooty little Upper East Side school. My first American school was Xavier High School down on 16th Street. I went there my sophomore year of high school. Always a commuter, I lived in Jersey, had the suburban life on nights and weekends and then had this city life during the day, and all my friends and experiences were very New York nineties, then on Saturday we’d go hiking in the woods. So I had a very, very eclectic not only culturally, but just in terms of—
SCHMIDT
Space?
AUGUSTAVE
Space, yeah. The summers I would spend in Brooklyn in the Flatbush with my uncle, and that was a very different experience also, very Black, Caribbean summers. I was really lucky that I had a wide range of experiences and kind of get to pick from all those as an artist now.
SCHMIDT
How did you get into music and deejaying?
AUGUSTAVE
My father, very classic, strict Haitian man, was very much about books, but he was also very much about art. He felt that you were not a full human, you weren’t a fully educated person if you didn’t know about the arts, so he would play Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson and Mozart, and Nigerian Pop and all sorts of music at home. Then he would say, “Go to the theatre and watch this.” He wanted me—well, he forced me, really to learn an instrument.
When I was a kid, I played the recorder for a while, and then I played the saxophone. I picked up the tenor sax. So, again, I’m listening to Hip Hop with my friends then I’m in the band listening to Coltrane and Chet Baker. So, another instance of my eclectic upbringing.
And I’ve also always loved acting. I remember being in first grade and going out for the plays and I always got one of the lead roles. Even doing Shakespeare in maybe fifth grade. I’ve always loved acting and I’ve always loved music, but I was supposed to be a doctor, so I thought I was never going to get a chance to do those things. They were always on the back burner, till life got me to a place, finally, where I chose that path, or it chose me, really.
SCHMIDT
So, acting. You didn’t act in this film. How was that decision made?
AUGUSTAVE
That’s a good question. So, funny enough, my primary passion is acting. I started to write and direct so that I could put myself into things I was interested in. I was auditioning for things that I wasn’t interested in and the stories that were being told weren’t what I was interested in. So I started writing and directing to put myself into my projects. But when I started directing, I realized that it’s very difficult to do both, so I decided I needed to get better at directing before I put myself into things. This was one of the steps on the way to potentially me being in my own films, but now it’s been so long since I’ve acted, although I still love it, that I’m moving further and further away from it, but I think I’ll eventually—probably soon—write myself a little part in whatever I make.
SCHMIDT
The first film of yours that I saw was Before I Knew, and you were in that along with some of your childhood pictures. And then, of course, your new film, which is now making the circuits, Nwa.
AUGUSTAVE
Yes, Nwa. It’s pronounced Nwa.
SCHMIDT
Oh! The Haitian Creole word.
AUGUSTAVE
A lot of people say N.W.A. because of N.W.A., and, at first, I didn’t write it for that reason, but it’s the Haitian Nwa, which is Creole for Black. Noir in French, Nwa in Creole. But I like that it has that double meaning. People look at it and they think, “Oh, N.W.A.” But it’s really Nwa, so it makes people question what the title means more, or if it is N.W.A., when why is that the title of your film? It creates a conversation that I actually like.
SCHMIDT
Do you speak Creole?
AUGUSTAVE
Yeah, I speak Creole. I mean, if I was in Haiti, they would probably say I don’t speak Creole, because I have probably, not an American accent, but definitely not a Haitian accent, so it’s kind of somewhere in the middle of French, English accent.
SCHMIDT
So, acting. What about painting, dancing?
AUGUSTAVE
No. I do enough. Please, no. But I admire and love people who can just take a pencil and create. It’s just so beautiful, and it’s just not a talent that I have, but, you know, I can get down. I can dance. I can play some music. I can act.
SCHMIDT
Another thing about your film, I Held Him, was the water sound. That was one of the only sounds besides words on the sound track. And the beginning starts with that African quote about water.
AUGUSTAVE
Water is very much a cleaning process. It’s used in a lot of African ceremonies, even non-African ceremonies. It’s a universal tool that we use that represents cleansing and change. In the beginning of the film, before they embrace, it’s a drop, the sound is drip-drop. Then once they embrace at the end, it’s more of a full underwater sound, and so it represents in an experimental kind of way the thing that you can’t describe but that you can feel or hear that sometimes happens in the world, the universe in arts, which is what I want to express.
Once they embrace, there’s two things that happen. The camera moves. Before that, the camera is all still, all static shots, and once they embrace, the camera—we use a steady cam—the camera starts to move and he gets a lot closer, while the water becomes an underwater sound.
The beauty of creating art is that it’s not mine anymore after it’s created. I believe that everyone brings something. The audience brings something. One audience member said to me, “You talk about the mom, wanting your mother, and there’s the portrait of this motherly figure in front of the couch and I thought the underwater sound was the sound of the womb.”
I was like, “Wow!” And I didn’t make it for that, but I can say that that’s there too. That is very much there, very much a part of it.
SCHMIDT
Where did you get cameras and equipment?
AUGUSTAVE
I worked in the industry. Started as a PA and you meet people who also want to create, and then, you collect a number here, a guy there, and everyone’s kind of trying to make their own thing, and I called some friends who had cameras, because I did not have the money. Everyone volunteered their time. It was a one-day shoot. At that point, I knew enough people that liked me, and said, “Hey, yeah, we’ll do something with you. If it’s a day where I’m not working, why don’t you put something together.” You know, we help each other. I help people on their projects, they help me on mine, so just people who wanted to make something.
SCHMIDT
It’s one thing when you’re a writer; you’re just home alone. But almost everything else, you’ve got to have other people, and that’s a part of the experience and the pleasure of it, is this giving and taking.
AUGUSTAVE
Absolutely. Yeah, especially filmmaking. It’s so collaborative. You have to collaborate, with the wardrobe person and the production design and the sound person and the acting, and everyone’s got their piece, and it’s—at least my philosophy or the way I direct is—I like everyone to feel like it’s theirs and not just like I’m doing this thing and I want it to be this way. It’s what you see and what can you bring to this that I may not have seen that will enhance it as a group kind of collaboration. I told somebody the other day, a director ls like a coach: You build your team and you grow in a direction, but everyone’s got their piece, and I can’t block and I can’t shoot, but I can write the play so that we all move in the same direction.
SCHMIDT
Is there anything that you would like to say about your artwork or these particular films or about deejaying?
AUGUSTAVE
I feel like the films say what I need to say. I like exploring the softer side, specifically as it has pertained to these last three films. The Black male experience has been that we’ve been portrayed for decades in such a negative way or as uber masculine, and as I age, I understand more and more that the strength in being a man is not always in the brute force of it. It’s actually sometimes stronger to be soft, and that exists. I’m surrounded by Black men who are loving and are good parents and who are good fathers and who tell each other, “I love you.” So, if there’s a Black kid out there who doesn’t think that exists, I want to show it so that they know like, “Oh, I can do that,” or, “I can be that.”
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