Spike Lee

Rumour has it that Shelton Jackson Lee was nicknamed "Spike" by his mother because he was so tough. Though born in Atlanta, Lee grew up in Brooklyn--the future setting for many of his films. Studying film at NYU's Tisch School of the Art, Lee made a thesis film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, which became the first student film ever to be showcased in the Lincoln Center's New directors New Films Festival. His first feature, She's Gotta Have It, shot on just $175,000, grossed over seven million at the box office. Lee has since produced and directed countless movies--or, as they're known in the vernacular, "Spike Lee Joints." He's also penned a dozen screenplays, and appeared in everything from his own Clockers to Saturday Night Live. In person, the provocateur and media icon is never at a loss for words. As one of the most outspoken African American voices, he talks candidly, and with authority, about issues of race in mainstream media and Hollywood, using, as a backdrop, a rare behind-the-scenes look at his celebrated body of work, whose images of racial division and understanding have ingrained themselves on the popular consciousness for decades now.