"The first movie I ever saw in my life, interestingly enough, was The Gods Must Be Crazy. It was a South African movie. It’s ironic that years later, the next most commercially successful film from South Africa after The Gods Must Be Crazy is District 9. The effect was kind of an early imprint that South Africa belonged in motion pictures. Because there was nothing else for years, as I became an adult — or even a young man — I kind of realized it didn’t. Everything that South Africa made was terrible that I subsequently saw. Usually I was just ashamed of it. I was like, “Oh God, we make terrible television, we make terrible movies.” And even with Marius Weyers doing the South African accent — something that was uniquely South African and African could be commercial was just imprinted in my brain."

"Another movie my dad took me to see. Why? I don’t remember him asking me if I wanted to go to the movies, necessarily, nor if he explained what we were going to see, and I’m sure I don’t remember him talking to me after the fact about what we had seen. I went because it was my dad + the movies. How did he choose? ’Round Midnight, Pumping Iron . . . Walkabout. I remember seeing Walkabout (I was very young, a preteen), and for a long time I remembered much about it. When I saw it as an adult I saw so much that I had not remembered but must still have been there inside of me. Scary. And great, I guess? Walkabout helped begin an awareness of significant otherliness, and maybe helped reinforce the idea that otherliness is not really sanctioned."