Filmmaker Nneka Onuorah Wants The LGBTQ+ Community "To Walk In Freedom, Not Survival"

By Michell C. Clark


In 2018, Nneka Onuorah had a plan: travel to over 100 countries to promote her documentary, The Same Difference. She didn’t have any funding or investors to assist her finance the tour, so she executed her vision on her own.


Immediately after one conversation with Onuorah, it becomes apparent that she didn’t accomplish such a feat by chance. “I sold out 400-person theatres with my own marketing plan,” she tells MTV News. “They mentioned it would take a million dollars to do what I’ve done. It took me $10,000. In case you prove that you could do everything with nothing, imagine what you could do with real funding.”


That lack of funding didn’t stop her from producing The Same Difference independently in 2015 soon after leaving a job that no longer served her purpose. That year, her Kickstarter for the film failed to raise enough money to fund the documentary; the Queens, New York native also took on serious revisions to the project because she felt her beginning script lacked the required detail to convey the message she sought to communicate.


The documentary, which premiered in June 2015, uses panel interviews with African-American lesbian and bisexual ladies to supply nuanced hints into the unspoken rules that dictate power dynamics within lesbian culture in the black community.


The documentary walks viewers through a series of so-called “rules” that define the way studs, femmes, and other subgroups in the LGBTQIA+ community feel expected to exhibit themselves, and features queer celebrities including Felicia “Snoop” Pearson from The Wire, Lea Delaria from Orange Is The New Black, AzMarie Livingston from Empire, and Dee Pimpin from Catfish. Onuorah uses the content that emerges to push back against stereotypes and create space for individuality and acceptance.


Since the release of The Same Difference, Onuorah has worked diligently to share intersectional stories on large platforms. In 2018, she worked as a field director on Netflix’s First and Last, which surveys America’s criminal justice system, and as a field producer on Viceland’s My House, which examines the intersection of the ballroom dance community and Black and Latinx communities in New York City. She’s currently co-producing a new show for Viceland Paris that “will break open a lot of issues around oppressed people who struggle with the idea of freedom.”


MTV News discussed with Onuorah about her guiding principles, her definition of freedom, and the responsibility that comes with filmmaking.





MTV News: Focusing on assignments that talked to you on a personalized level was something of a career shift for you. How did you navigate that transition?


Nneka Onuorah: Having a plan is what relieved my anxiety. I didn’t leave without a plan. Any time once you have a plan that you could follow, everything doesn’t seem so overwhelming. I took my time and focused on small things that led to bigger wins. I didn’t swing for the fences any time Once I got began. I focused on one thing at a time, and separated myself from anything that didn’t align with my goals.


I put together a structure that allowed me to take ownership of my ideas. I had been attempting to convince someone else that my ideas were crucial, once in reality I should have been proving the same thing to myself.


I moved strategically. I had already saved some cash, began the documentary, and built some essential relationships inside of the firm before I quit. I congregated a regimented schedule. I would work out for the opening three hours of my day. I would spend the next three hours pitching writers who concentrate on topics connected to the documentary. Three out of five would mention yes. I kept ownership of all my assignments and used the residual cash to fund my next projects.


MTV News: You’ve regularly embraced failure as a segment of your process — most notably the failed Kickstarter and incomplete script for The Same Difference. How do you stay sure of yourself any time failures occur on big stages?


NO: Failure is what connects all. I don’t believe that people who pretend that their lives are brilliant are happy on the indoors. I can’t survive with presenting as something that I’m not. Refusing to share how I feel is isolating — I just be alone for no reason. We may all be thinking the same things, although if no one expresses those feelings, then nobody understands. Telling the truth permits us to have the whole, human, connective experience that we’re meant to have.


MTV News: You documented the Black LGBTQIA community for The Same Difference. You’re also segment of that community. The former requires a degree of separation from the subject matter, while the latter is, by definition, tied to shared experience. How did you balance these two seemingly oppositional positions for the creation of this film?


NO: I did what had to be done. A lot of people stick to the communities that they’re of course drawn to, for safety and comfort. That’s never been my truth. I’m fortunate to be a segment of several communities — I’m a Black lesbian from Queens who is significantly connected in corporate America. I’ve traveled a lot, so I have significant connections in Parisian and African communities. I manage the privilege that I have by existing in so several spaces, and define myself in a way that permits me to take the communities that I’m segment of to the next level.


MTV News: Advantageous visibility can be a slippery slope, as it could potentially diminish the accomplishments of people with smaller platforms who do the work day-to-day. How do you plan to make sure that you remain principled as your visibility keeps it up and continues to rise?


NO: I prioritize amplifying the voices of people who don’t have the platforms they require to express themselves on large stages — whether the boundaries of their platforms are due to oppression, lack of education, legal matters, or finances. I will usually use film as a tool to help people share and explain their own stories. I plan to will constantly help people do the internal work needed to understand what is happening to them as a result of society’s constructs.


I don’t give attention to victimization. Every film shows people who are both celebrating themselves, and fighting for their lives. Media tends to tell the story of how sad and oppressed we are. Telling sad stories doesn’t help unless we begin to interrogate what the other side of that sadness looks like. The community needs to be able to see what it looks like for you to be excellent, pretty, powerful, and bold. We all have our own flaws and faults, several of which stem from the system that we’re in. We’re also just human beings. We’re still learning. I plan to continue to tell stories that let us to grow with each other while exploring our own demons.


MTV News: What makes film such a key car for capturing a community’s intricacies?


NO: Film is the most powerful tool on the planet. I’ll use my life for example. I love Paris so much. I’m in love with every bit of it. I saw Paris on Mary Kate & Ashley and The Parent Trap as a kid, and fell in love with French culture. I had never been there. I grew up in the Paris building in the LeFrak City neighborhood of Queens. That was the closest I had been to Paris as a child. I fell in love with segment of the world that I had never experienced for myself by way of the power of cinema. Books and film give you the access to spaces, even in case you don’t have the resources to physically travel there.


Film permits you to explore your curiosity without fear of judgement — like a Black person who’s curious about a different culture, or a heterosexual person who’s curious about gay culture. People refrain from asking certain questions for fear of offending someone or coming across the incorrect way. With cinema, you could watch and learn and interpret without fear. Judgement prevents the spread of statistics. Nobody wants to seem ignorant. Film permits you to experience and understand on your own terms.


MTV News: What responsibilities come as well as the power that filmmakers possess?


NO: Filmmakers have a wonderful responsibility. Especially social filmmakers. At times, we’re making films in dangerous situations that affect people’s day-to-day lives. Exposing people’s stories and being present in their environment changes their lives — some days for better, some days for worse. As filmmakers, we have to be aware of those things and prevent any potential harm that could come from sharing stories that people have trusted us with. As soon as you put intelligence into the world, you've got to be accountable for the narrative that you create. You have a voice.


MTV News: Do you have any suggestions to distribute to people interested in breaking into the filmmaking industry?


NO: Think small. Some days you have got to work for free. Some days you need experience. Look at how you could be of value to people who are doing the things that you desire to do. In case you could distribute value to someone in exchange for knowledge that you need, do that. You should have a plan of action, and take baby steps towards your objective. Don’t just mention you aspire to be a millionaire. Be specific. What job do you desire to do, and how? What story do you aspire to tell? What’s driving you? You won’t connect with people up until you begin to understand that.


MTV News: You recently attended the 2019 GLAAD Awards. What were some of the most memorable moments from that night?


NO: The GLAAD Awards were astonishing — not only because I was honored, however because I saw Jay-Z and Beyoncé receive the Vanguard Award. I was nominated for my work on My House, a show on Viceland that is near and dear to my heart as a queer woman who grew up dancing. The show is about the intersection of the ballroom dance community and Black/Latinx communities in New York City. I got to share space with transformative individuals who support the empowerment of Black LGBTQ people. Seeing Jay-Z and Beyoncé receive the Vanguard Award was incredible, particularly because so much of what Jay-Z talks about connects directly with what I care about.





MTV News: The 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City is coming up in June. What do you know needs to be true inside the LGBTQIA community over the next 50 years?


NO: Power and authenticity. The opening 50 years were about survival. The Butch-Femme dynamic came to be before Stonewall as a means of giving lesbian couples a safer way to walk down the street in New York City — because at first glance @they could seem to be a straight couple. Right now that we’re past Stonewall, that dynamic has become patriarchal.


I want us to walk in freedom — not survival. I want people to be their full, expressive, authentic selves. We don’t need to fit within labels or boxes. We need to do “us” for the next fifty years, no matter what anyone says. I want us to move in the world as anyone else would. If we already visualize ourselves as “othered,” then that’s how we’re going to walk into a space.


MTV News: in the event you had to issue a word of encouragement to your younger self, what would you say?


NO: When I was younger and I would dance in church, someone notified me that I dance also hard. From that point on, I habitually attempted to refine my dancing. I didn’t understand the concept of a hater, so I just assumed that they were right. As I got older, I saw that each person who dances well dances hard. I realized that people were just hating on me, and that I had been carrying that with me for my whole life. As soon as you’re young, you internalize so much and it also becomes who are as soon as you get older. Do things for you. Do what you feel indoors. Let that out. It’s a form of self-expression. Don’t hold anything back. Lay down all your emotions. With dance, you can’t hide anything. Let yourself go, and let yourself feel.