Tracey Heggins and Wyatt Cenac in Medicine for Melancholy Still photography by David Bornfriend/Courtesy of Strike Anywhere Films

I think so, too. The film brings up issues of gentrification and cultural identity within a diverse populace. Are these things you think about regularly?
Yeah, it's weird, it was one of those things I didn't notice until I spent a lot of time in San Francisco. As I began to settle down into the city, it's like any city: you start to notice things that you didn't on first glance. You think of San Francisco as a melting pot, and really, it's not. Only seven percent of the population is African-American, and most of that seven percent live below the poverty line. You can walk 20 city blocks without seeing another black person, because they're all concentrated in these really small sections of the city. It's like they don't really get to [have a] dialogue with the rest of the city. I think it's to the detriment of San Francisco that they don't. It's a beautiful city, and it stirs up all these emotions. The more time I spent there, the more I got immersed in the actual socio-economic makeup, which then ties directly into gentrification and the housing crisis: apartments there are just abnormally expensive. So all these people who work in the city services, they don't live in the city. It's two hours to come in and preserve that city, and then they have to drive two hours across a bridge to go home. At some point, the psychological dynamic of the community gets fractured. I think that's the entry point for me into making the film.

For better or worse, how do you feel about modern black cinema today?
I think, for better, there are definitely more black filmmakers getting films made. For worse, those films continue to fall into two or three sorts of stereotypes, I would say. There's the hood flick, the comedy, and then at one point, we went from hood cinema to "buppie" cinema, the black yuppie cinema. So there's a whole segment of the African-American experience that isn't being told. It's definitely one of the reasons why I made Medicine for Melancholy. You never want to go into making a film with that sort of reasoning, but I can't deny that was a part of it. I felt like there are African-Americans who are middle class, in the arts scene, or who are hipsters, or who ride bikes. I can't think of a film I've seen that has black characters riding bikes.

Tracey Heggins and Wyatt Cenac in Medicine for Melancholy Still photography by David Bornfriend/Courtesy of Strike Anywhere Films

Is there anyone who has consciously influenced your filmmaking and subject matter?
Definitely. Claire Denis is a big influence on me. Actually, I got the idea for the film when I first saw Vendredi Soir [a/k/a] Friday Night a few years ago, just the idea of dramatizing a one-night stand, what Claire Denis did in that film. I thought, for my generation, it would be more interesting to have the characters follow each other the morning after because they wouldn't have the emotional restraint to leave it at a one-night stand. From a filmmaking standpoint, I think she's amazing; the level of metaphor her films arrive at, despite the fact that she's a very bare bones, what I call "nuts-and-bolts" filmmaker. You know, her films aren't what I would call stylish. I mean, they are, but it's a very strange style. I look at my film and it's not the case at all. Your influences don't have to [inform] your aesthetic, but when I approach a film, I think of Claire Denis, Lynne Ramsay and Lucrecia Martel. It's weird, but I basically love female filmmakers. And who's to say you can tell what a female filmmaker is by watching their films, but that's been the case with me.

After watching Medicine for Melancholy, I was instantly worried that journalists were going to make superficial comparisons like "the African-American Before Sunset," or worse, "black mumblecore." How do you feel about such lazy associations that could possibly help widen your audience, but at the same time pigeonhole your work?
Well, it's great if people are talking about the film regardless of the parameters they're talking about it in. At the same time, who is to say what a mumblecore movie is? Who's to say what a black film is? I'm not an idiot; obviously, this is a black film. But I mean, I myself in an interview described the film as Do the Right Thing meets Before Sunset, which it kind of is. I have no problem with that. Before Sunset is an inspiration for the film. I don't think I would have been drawn to doing a day-in-the-life film if I hadn't seen those Linklater movies. At the same time, I do think the film is unique. It has its own merits and [doesn't] fit into a certain category.

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