Bertram Rodgers

My life has unfolded like a Quentin Tarantino movie; most things have occurred out of traditional sequence, but I'll be damned if my story doesn't turn out to be a beautiful one by the rolling of the credits. Not that I'm super religious because I'm not, but the turning of events in the past few years has me wondering whether this white Jesus really has my back. Having said that, I think wisdom can be extracted from any source if it is rooted in truth, and one of my mantras is a biblical passage from the Book of James. It says, "count it all pure joy for your trials and tribulations..." and going on to paraphrase, "because after learning the intended lesson, that's what makes you the good person you think you are or ever hope to be." My birth certificate describes me as "colored." I've never seen a "white only" sign, but I can state with complete certainty that while in my mother's arms as an infant, we passed one or two on the way to the "colored" section of a waiting room in my Arkansas hometown situated in the Mississippi Delta. By the time I was 11 years old, I was worn down and broken by the systemic racism that I am now working to eradicate in the public schools through the non-profit organization I helped to launch. I always say I'm a casualty of the Wynne (AR) Public Schools because of the racism I experienced from students and teachers alike. I was even labeled a "troublemaker" for questioning the status quo. Despite being one of the brightest members of my class, I didn't give a damn about anything after I lost a fixed student council election because my platform questioned why there were no Black representatives from the sixth grade. My enthusiasm for music sustained me through high school; I was a member of the Arkansas All-State Band on the saxophone, but academically, I was mediocre at best. I thought I was smart, but I was a hopeless underachiever and was never in the honors section that tracked the children of local doctors and lawyers on the pathway to lives of comfort and privilege. It wasn't until many years later when I was asked to complete a routine psychological evaluation that things got very interesting and took a very different twist. The results revealed more than I could have ever imagined. Let's just say I used those scores to gain membership into American Mensa, Ltd. as well as a few other more exclusive high-IQ organizations. That really means very little in some circles and even less if one's belief system is as screwed up as mine once was, but hey, we're products of our environment. When you're told you're nothing, you believe you're nothing until you come to realize your absolute truth. Unfortunately, some people never do. Academia was my saving grace. l entered Columbia College Chicago to continue the mid-life renaissance. Prior to my return to Chicago, I spent a stint at a college in Bloomington, Indiana where I thrived and eventually graduated summa cum laude. Bloomington is where I introduced myself to myself for the first time. By the time I left for film school in Chicago, I'd served as Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society President, a peer mentor, founded an organization for students of color, endowed a scholarship that recognizes academic excellence, served as graduation Student Marshall, and addressed my fellow graduates at commencement. I continued my quest to effect change at Columbia College. I appeared in Amazon Prime's "The College Tour" to speak out against racism, and I was later appointed to serve on the Academic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Executive Committee. Not bad for an old dude, huh? That's why you'll always find me encouraging others because I am a living witness that It's never too late for change. The events of my life have yielded enough screenplays to keep me busy directing stories for a lifetime. The empirical accounts ranging from my earliest childhood memories to the present include tales of our uninsured house burning down in the dead of winter, traveling from Memphis to St. Louis on a Greyhound bus with an illiterate neighbor when I was 7 years old, and never being told the real reason why I couldn't play in a public pool in my Arkansas hometown. Stories of triumph over adversity are both educational and entertaining. With that in mind, coupled with Walter Murch's most important "Rule of Six," emotional appeal, I am poised to tell moving stories that will capture a broad, curious, and enthusiastic audience. I am most inspired by the work of Ava Duvernay. She is the epitome of what I hope to be as a director. Her mission is very clear: to provoke thought, educate, and initiate conversations that might lead to a more just and inclusive society. Such is my purpose! Now is the perfect time to further refine my communication skills to become a master filmmaker using my many personal experiences to inform and educate. I have been blessed with a very eventful and colorful life with the perfect combination of tragedies, challenges, resolves, and serendipitous outcomes that have fortified my strength and rendered me a better man after enduring, deciphering, accepting, and consequently celebrating them. From those lessons, I am confident that I have developed a level of maturity, wisdom, and passion that has enabled me to fully appreciate why my journey has taken the twists and turns that have led me to this point. Living is learning, and the best method of learning is through collaborative efforts as we work together toward a common goal. I have been fortunate enough to join forces with professors and students alike to address my passion of rewriting unfair narratives of people of color in America. It takes a village, they say, and any village I chose must be comprised of like-minded denizens standing on one accord with all sights clearly trained on forward progress.Bertram