Authentic Narratives Quotes

Media gatekeepers - editors, publishers, film studios and the like - need to begin investing in talent behind the scenes, developing and resourcing marginalized voices to tell their own stories. At the end of the day, it's about the story and what will enable the audience to truly see, understand, and know the life and times of the subject.

I think it is more important to tell a story rather than follow any trend; that is a less bold way to go. If you do that [follow trends] you are just trying to ride on the coat tails of someone else's success.

All my stories are mainly slice-of-life and rooted to real issues and situations that I have experienced myself.

A culture cannot evolve without honest, powerful storytelling. When a society repeatedly experiences glossy, hollowed-out, pseudo-stories, it degenerates. We need true satires and tragedies, dramas and comedies that shine a clean light into the dingy corners of the human psyche and society.

To me, the moment you're talking about nonfiction you're talking about reality.

I think what Hollywood is learning at large is that there is profitability in stories that are culturally specific and that you can only address the universal through the specific.

I don't go see big, silly movies. I like small things about regular folks, you know?

Well, it seems to me that there are books that tell stories, and then there are books that tell truths... The first kind, they show you life like you want it to be. With villains getting what they deserve and the hero seeing what a fool he's been and marrying the heroine and happy endings and all that... But the second kind, they show you life more like it is... The first kind makes you cheerful and contented, but the second kind shakes you up.

In my films, a lot of the situations come from real life.

Over the years, I have come to realize that no matter how satisfying fiction is, it becomes that much better when it actually happened.

It is easy to make stuff up - and easy to dig up information and repeat it or report it to others. But to find a real life story with real people in real life situations is quite difficult and time-consuming. Yet, the rewards are worth the effort.

The best stories come from real life.

From fiction, you do not get to learn much because it is only imagination. Whereas, from non-fiction, people can understand and learn from the realities it covers.

I really believe in people putting stories out there that contain the most difficult moments because nothing to me is more lonely making than sanitized stories or airbrushed stories that kind of allied how hard it got.

People want real-life stories.

A book in which there were no lies would be a curiosity.

My brand is good storytelling. I really want [my company] Hillman Grad Productions to be associated with great stories, interesting characters; things that are three-dimensional and feel honest.

I feel like progress will be made in the landscape of Latino influence when we get to tell those murky, real, close-to-life narratives.

If the story is insensitive to a person and is not nuanced enough, that's a story I don't want to be a part of. Otherwise there is no other character that I don't want to play.

I think documentary filmmaking is a braver way to make films because it's real, and you're really there.

I loved 'Monsoon Wedding' and 'Lunchbox' because they had 'real' stories. I wish there are more films made like them.

You can only really get to any truth by telling peoples' stories.

Full stories are as rare as honesty.