Photo credit: Courtesy of Production
“The purpose of the movie is to make people aware of what’s going on,” Dominique Purdy told Hollywood on the Potomac. “It’s for people that are not experiencing the type of things that I have based on my personal experiences and those of a lot of people of my background. It is to show people what it’s like dealing with this on a daily basis. People that deal with this on a daily basis – they get a lot of the jokes because the humor in this [stuff] is ridiculous!” Dominique Purdy is the star and co-writer of Driving While Black being shown at the DC Independent Film Festival (DCIFF).
Driving While Black (DWB) is a dark comedy, rooted deeply in reality… but not a reality that everybody is familiar with. The film explores the reasons why so many black men have concerns of unfair treatment, especially while driving. “Anyone who has ever driven while black, (or knows someone who has) will laugh throughout – and it might just change an opinion or two,” Purdy added. It’s a comedy about the extra layer of police hassle that the young black man faces while driving. We asked him when he was aware of this going on, when he was a teenager driving around? “No, when I was born,” he laughed. “Only in America!”
Dominique Purdy
Purdy is in town representing the film. Writer-Director Paul Sapiano won’t be with him. “Nobody would buy him a ticket,” he joked.
“One of the things that really struck me,” said Paul over our SKYPE interview, “is you hear, as a white guy, driving while black a lot. I never really understood it. As we were writing the script, Dom said ‘well come and ride around with me for a bit and see what happens.’ And it was incredible. The amount of times that a police car would do a U turn and follow us would make you feel that they were checking on us. Dom told me that ‘this has been going on my whole life’ and it occurred to me the physiological effect of every interaction with the police wasn’t that great, even from a young age. It must have an affect over the long run, so I guess that answers the question about when it first happened to him. I first realized how serious it was after we started making the movie. There are a lot of films that have already tackled the subject in a dramatic form like Fruitvale Station – DWB combines humor.”
“To be honest, I’m experienced with all of these things with the police. Me and my friends, we talk about it. Like what happened to them and what happened to me is funny because we know the routine,” Purdy added. “It’s not funny to somebody who’s white or a woman because it’s super serious to you because you don’t experience that. I experience that all the time, so there’s humor that can be brought out in it and that humor is my point of view. I can take it and put it into something that’s humorous but still gets the point across and that’s what real comedy is suppose to do. It’s suppose to make people both laugh and think and that’s what the movie does.”
Purdy remembers being knocked around by the police while driving his bicycle, being thrown against a brick wall, which is a scene in the movie. “When you look at the scene, it’s funny. We laugh at that because it’s so ridiculous. It’s like – ‘damn, you guys are really being ridiculous’ and that’s where the humor comes from.” We asked him who is the audience for DWB. “Everyone, America. The world is the audience. Obviously, black people can relate so that an audience, but it’s for everyone. That’s why the humor is there; so when something serious happens people can feel uncomfortable in the audience, but then they can laugh and that loosens the tension to let you know whats going on. It’s really for the world and everyone can get something out of this.” “And it’s a very diverse cast of characters we have in the film, ” added Paul. “That was important to us……to make it look like real life……like Los Angeles. It’s an important film and I think that humor is the best way to do it. We wrote a comedy and as we started finessing it and making it, it became more serious and now I think it is part serious and part humorous.”
“To me, it was always a mix,” concluded Dom. “To be honest, that’s me. It is me in general. I’m a drama. I’m a walking drama. You have to have a sense of humor about all of the BS that happens. You can then break that down into a number of different things that people can understand. Then you put humor in it……..that’s awesome. It’s probably the best movie, the best relevant movie that’s popping right now. Once the movie gets bigger we are really going to see what affect it has.”
