Plan B co-founder and Los Angeles native Dede Gardner refuses to let the Trump administration scare her out of LA.
At a masterclass moderated by Variety‘s Elsa Keslassy, Gardner explained that though she may have initially felt the urge to relocate to Europe (especially in the wake of Plan B’s partnership with Paris-based Mediawan), she feels more strongly about continuing to tell important stories in LA.
“The truth of it is I feel conflicted,” Gardner admitted. “There are days, especially recently, where you think, ‘This isn’t sustainable. What’s going to happen? This is completely nuts.’ Then there are other days where being in California, which is essentially the most progressive state, part of me thinks, ‘No, you know what? Stay here. Be on the front line. Be around. Be near the change.’”
“We interviewed the great Mike Davis a few years ago for a movie about the LA riots. He wrote that book ‘City of Quartz,’” she continued. “He said, ‘Everything that happens in LA happens 20 years before it happens in the United States.’ So there’s a part of me that thinks you can’t run. You have to stay here and be rigorous, keep pushing for story, and story that counteracts the erasure of history.”
Gardner expressed a similar sentiment when discussing finding and platforming underrepresented talent. “We had the fortune of having put pictures at MGM Orion. Our feeling is if you’re given that privilege, you should spend it on people and stories that wouldn’t get made otherwise inside the system. If someone gives you some money to play with, you better play well.”
When it came to determining which filmmaker would be the right fit for Plan B’s then-developing project “Nickel Boys,” Gardner said it was crucial to focus on both form and narrative. “‘Nickel Boys’ is a really good example of a book that had a kind of jiu-jitsu move at the end, and I was thinking, ‘Oh, we need a filmmaker who’s going to protect this move.’ Not only does the story need to get told, but the filmmaking has to meet it halfway, and be in service of this extraordinary thing Colson Whitehead does in the book.”
Plan B’s upcoming film, “Mickey 17,” is also based on a novel, but Gardner says director Bong Joon Ho made significant changes for the film. “We had an instinct, knowing director Bong as we do, that he might respond to the themes of the book. He changed it a lot, but the underbelly and the main keel is there. There’s a commonality inside all his films, a very singular tone that’s significant and serious but also playful, anti-authoritarian, and rebellious.”
