EP037 – Theoretically Promiscuous w/ Courtney Cook

01.22.2026 - Season: 1 Episode 37

What does impact look like? That’s what we’re asking this week’s guest, Courtney Cook—a veteran impact producer who’s helped hundreds of doc-makers answer that question in her 7-years at POV. A high school teacher-turned-PhD-turned-doc-producer and soon-to-be professor of documentary film at Texas State, Courtney has strong opinions about perspective, ethics, and how having a “bad attitude” is the only way to make it in this field.

Courtney happily draws inspiration from Black Feminist Thought, HANDS ON A HARDBODY, and the stop-motion masters, the Brothers Quay—explaining just what it means to be “theoretically promiscuous.” Transitioning out of her role at POV and preparing to re-enter academia, we catch Courtney shortly before the Augmented Reality project LAYERS OF PLACE: AUSTIN that she produced with the MIT Open Documentary Lab makes its debut at SXSW this Spring. Courtney breaks down the difference between making art and making a career, why you should know how you want to “haunt” your audience, and what it actually takes to build a life as a documentary storyteller when you’re not “kind-of rich.” This wide-ranging walk cuts through the noise and confusion of the current doc landscape and lands at a simple conclusion, that the real silver lining in this industry is us. “We’re the silver lining.”

Plus: the gospel of asking better questions, how EYES ON THE PRIZE changed her entire life, why librarians rule, and a peek inside a little free art gallery in the Mueller neighborhood of East Austin. This one’s about community, hustle, and learning to “hold on gently.”

Discussion Links: EYES ON THE PRIZE (1987-1990) | HANDS ON A HARD BODY (1997) | LAYERS OF PLACE: AUSTIN (2026)

Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Introduction 02:00 Outlook on Texas Filmmaking and Doc Distribution 05:00 Mueller Lake Park and POV Impact Work 07:00 Education, Ethics, and Power in Documentary 10:00 From PhD to POV: Courtney’s Path 15:00 Building Careers vs. Building Projects 19:00 Producer Pay and Labor Practices 23:00 The Three-Month Trial Period 26:00 Feisty Conversations and Better Questions 29:00 Grant Applications and Process 33:00 Theoretically Promiscuous 34:00 Silver Linings: We Have Each Other 37:00 MIT Augmented Reality Project 39:00 It’s All Who You Know (Two Steps Away) 43:00 Believing in People Until You Learn Otherwise 45:00 Gateway Drug: Eyes on the Prize 48:00 Advice for Emerging Filmmakers 52:00 Little Free Art Gallery Discovery 53:00 DIY Impact and Educational Distribution 55:00 What’s Next for Courtney

Keith: A quick high five.

Nice.

That'll work.

Okay.

Okay, so now what happens is we walk, we talk.

Yeah.

We get into it.

Courtney: Okay.

Keith: Do you have any questions?

Courtney: No.

Keith: Do you have any concerns?

Courtney: I mean, I can't like spill certainty.

Keith: Oh, you've got some, you got some hot gossip, but

you're worried that might out.

No, I just feel like people,

Courtney: people always wanna ask me certain things, so,

but I'll have discretion.

Of course.

Is there any, well, I guess my question is like, I don't wanna be shitty at this.

Keith: Alright, that's a good one.

Take two.

You're worried about how to do this, right?

You got the cameras set, got the camera

Courtney: going.

Yep.

You're gonna be

Keith: honest.

You're gonna be open, but you're gonna keep your hot Gs to

yourself until the camera cuts and then you tell me everything.

Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe.

Um, but.

The real question is what are we doing here and who are we with

and who's here and who isn't?

Let's start with who isn't.

Yeah.

Where's

Courtney: Ben?

Not here.

Never met him.

Yeah.

Sounds fake.

He might be fake.

Keith: The Snuffle Lucus in this episode.

Ben Stein Bauer is not here today, folks.

Uh, but I'm here.

I'm Keith.

And to my right.

Please welcome this week's guest and soon to be professor of

documentary film and history.

Welcome, Courtney Cook.

Tracy: Good morning.

Keith: Good morning cook.

And then the little music plays right here.

Tracy: Yeah.

Keith: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

I like that music.

Oh, what's this?

Tracy: Yeah.

Keith: And then we're into the episode.

Tracy: your left,

Keith: you're listening to Doc Walks with Ben and Keith.

So Courtney Cook, who is Courtney.

Well, I said last week at the end of the episode that this

week was all gonna be about.

Impact.

Courtney makes an impact in every conversation that she takes

part in, at least as far as I,

Courtney: and who knows,

Keith: just making an impact out there and look, hey, that's what it's all about.

But she also has tremendous background in impact producing and

educational conversationing around individual documentary films and

the world of documentary film.

Mm-hmm.

So for the last seven years you've been with POV.

Mm-hmm.

You're about to make a transition.

Mm-hmm.

So this seemed like a perfect time to chat with you, kind of about

where you've been, where you're going, where this world documentary

filmmaking has been, where's it going?

Sure.

But before we do that, I'm just gonna swing the camera

around and take a look at this.

Hi.

Look at that.

That's

Doc W's guest.

Chelsea Hernandez.

Future doc.

W's guest.

Tracy Frazier.

Actually, you were on, you were on last year's A FSS.

Episode for five seconds and I listened to that.

You know what other one I listened to?

I told you I listened to, uh, Mo Deani

Courtney: Modi.

Leon Twice

Keith: to

Tracy: Ani.

Yes.

Because there were

Courtney: so

Tracy: many pearls.

Wow.

Courtney: just That's a good one.

That was a really great, okay.

Anyway, anyway, I listened to Chelsea's twice.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Keith: I was wondering where we getting all our listeners from.

The numbers just keep ticking out.

Courtney: What?

It's great.

Have fun.

Thanks.

Keith: It's lovely to see you.

Courtney: Yeah.

Good.

So cute to see them.

Keith: Yeah.

This is meant to be a conversation and not just an interview.

Courtney: Right.

Keith: But I will ask questions.

Courtney: Sure.

Keith: And, uh, but I'm gonna start with Chelsea's question right there.

What is the, what is your outlook on Texas filmmaking here at the beginning of 2026?

Courtney: We're talking docs.

Keith: Sure.

We're walking docs or talking docs?

Courtney: Uh, I mean, let's just like start with a really big question.

I don't know.

I feel like making predictions is.

A bit of a fool's errand right now.

I mean, trends in doc outlook, not great.

Um, what's your episode title for production Distribution?

But you know, one thing I do, I have been working in public media for

the last seven years and I'm on the community advisory board with Austin PBS.

Nice.

And I do think that local public media.

Opportunities are going to continue to exist.

I do think for like Indie Dock filmmakers, considering, you know,

strengthening relationships with local station, Austin PBS is a great

place to look for support, mentorship.

Consider your local audience what stories are meaningful to us.

That's not really an outlook on the future of Texas film.

Um, I know we got the big film incentive, but it seems like there's a lot of, uh,

nuance in that that isn't necessarily gonna support indie doc filmmakers.

Keith: It's an exciting opportunity for the world of film in Texas, and I

do think there'll be a trickle down, you know, if FX or HBO comes to town

with like a big, you know, $5 million episode series, that doesn't necessarily.

I mean a lot to an indie doc filmmaker.

Right.

But there are certain intangibles that having a stronger film

community supports for everybody.

Tracy: Yeah.

Keith: As far as like being a doc maker, applying for the tax incentive,

I'm, I'm definitely doing that.

Tracy: Yeah.

Keith: Um, good.

And I think we'll get some support.

Where are we right now?

This is

Courtney: little cute little pond where the ducks live, where the ducks go and

the bird watchers are, they're over there.

Keith: Okay.

So we're in Mueller Lake Park.

For fans of the show, we've been in this park before.

We were here with Avril, we talked about Avril.

Oh yeah.

Just a moment ago.

Cool.

And we were here with, uh, Sandy Debowski, and now we're here with Courtney.

So we started out talking about Impact.

You spent seven years at POV.

Mm-hmm.

We jump to this side, and I was excited to meet somebody who worked

on the side of the business that you do, because it's not something.

That the average everyday filmmaker has access to.

And you had such a different view of our world because you know what POB

was putting out 13 episodes a year.

13 feature docs a year.

Courtney: Yeah.

And then a handful of shorts over the last few.

And

Keith: as a education consultant, impact producer, what was

your role with those films?

Courtney: I worked with film teams to have conversations around, um, what

communities they wanted their films to be in front of, and then I would.

Work with librarians to get their films in communities across the country.

Uh, librarians rule.

Yes.

And they would create reading lists to support the film.

So if somebody watched the film was like, whoa, damn, I wanna learn everything

about this topic or community, then they had a long list of books they could read.

Also, hire writers, poets, activists, organizers to create discussion guides.

Primarily I was like producing, um, resources to support ideally

transformative dialogue within communities after people screen the films.

Yeah, I mean, I guess like impact and education.

I would talk on panels.

I often about like ethics and power, but that's my pre POV work, my PhD. Work.

Keith: So you grew up in Georgia, Uhhuh, you studied in Boston Uhhuh.

And here in Austin, Uhhuh you got multiple degrees, a master's, a

PhD. You taught in high school?

Mm-hmm.

So education deep.

Oh yeah.

Like layered relationship to education.

Yeah.

And when you bring all that to documentary filmmaking, like what

does that, like what do you focus on?

What, what do you bring that somebody else doesn't again?

Because I mean, I know it's a lot.

Courtney: I mean, a bad attitude, what do I bring?

That's a curious question.

Like pedagogy, the art of teaching, the craft of teaching and how certain mediums

open us up to allowing new perspectives or lessons to kind of, um, land.

You know, my background was studying.

Uh, race and violence.

And I used, you know, my first entry into storytelling was literature.

I'm not really a film guy.

I'm a, I'm a humanities guy, I guess.

Okay.

Um, but I was really interested in how fiction could support.

Like using historical fiction around collective traumas could

support learning in a new way.

Because if we're reading something that is like in the genre of fiction, we're not

gonna come to it with all of our defenses.

We're not like, well, they're calling me racist, or they're saying

something that I'm responsible for.

You know,

Keith: it offsets.

Sure.

Your kind of defense mechanism with just like that veil of fictionally?

Courtney: Yeah, just the genre itself and you know, now I don't only work in doc,

I like work across art mediums, I guess.

And I think Doc is one way.

Yeah,

art, full documentaries art.

One way to kind of maybe like lift the veil on certain things that

people otherwise would either choose not to see or be hesitant to see.

To explore their own complicity and you know, but documentary is just one way.

Keith: Yeah.

Take me back seven years ago when you first started at POV.

Where were you in your varied career at that point?

Like kind of what had been some of the highlights and what drew you to that role?

Courtney: I was in my PhD program and which was focused on the

PhD is in cultural studies.

I got it at ut. It's from the College of Education.

So my master's was in African American studies.

I'm from the country in Georgia.

Pretty explicitly racist place, the small town I was from.

And in my PhD I studied white supremacist ideology and violence dark,

um, but also ethical relationality.

And the cultural studies is really just like a study of power.

So.

I was looking at all these different manifestations of power, systemic,

historic, and maybe that's what I bring.

People ask me to help them sometimes to have those kinds of conversations.

Yeah.

You know, like a critical combo or examination about power and

in all the ways that shows up.

So I was in the PhD program and I try to be honest about how I started

working with POV when I'm talking to younger people or like, hell not even

like younger people, like if I'm in a mentoring role because you know, power.

And the illusion of who gets to make it.

Yeah.

The things that make us feel shitty when we don't.

My dad had died and I had moved back to the southeast to be closer

to family taking leave of absence, and I needed a job even though

I was still in the PhD program.

So I started looking for jobs and I found the job at POV.

It was interesting, you know, like it did come full circle.

I had never really, like many people heard of, like impact producing.

Um.

But I had been a teacher forever and teaching rules.

I love teaching.

I'm super, super excited to be getting back to teaching later this year.

And when I was in my last year of college, I had to take a final class and it was

literature in the Civil rights movement and in that class, the teacher played the

eyes on the prize series and its entirety, and that completely changed my life.

That was like that class is when I was like, oh shit, I'm white.

Why didn't anybody ever tell me this before?

And that is like what sent me to Boston to learn more Eyes on the

Prize is also the first series on PBS that had an impact campaign.

So it felt kind of cool in full circle to learn that.

Yeah, it's, it's a great series.

It's a great show.

Historically super important politically, culturally, socially.

So I was happy to hop on board.

Keith: I love POV and it was such a like a. A paramount when I got started in doc

filmmaking, I think I started around 2004.

Mm-hmm.

And really there was HBO docs with Sheila Evans, uh, and then there

was POV and independent lens.

Right.

And there really wasn't much else, at least that I was aware of.

But when you stepped back and you looked at them, you saw narrow differences

between what made an HBO doc.

What made a POV doc and what made an independent lens doc.

And I think POV, especially back then when there were so few options, really

started in a lot of conversations and was like a, a place that you knew

you were gonna go and be challenged.

Courtney: Absolutely.

And now I think, you know, I've worked with hundreds of filmmakers

and supported a lot of films over the years and now in this political

dis and distribution landscape.

You know, the big streamers aren't really gonna take certain films that

have a particular kind of political edge.

You're taught that like somehow you make a film and then the film

is finished, and then you do your theatrical, or you do your festival run.

And if you get into a festival.

A big festival, that means you've made it and that like promises distribution

and that's just not the case anymore.

We saw that a number of times last year.

Like with Union for instance, it won a lot of awards.

But I mean, last

Keith: year's Academy Award winner.

Yeah, no other lamb sound, uh, official distribution.

They built their own distribution package and I think they had a lot of success.

Right.

It can be kind of held up as like a success story by.

I mean, they're starting with the most press you could

ever generate in the world.

Right.

For a doc.

And they're still fighting an uphill battle.

Courtney: Right.

Because at the end of the day, it is an industry.

I mean, that's also what I try to tell filmmakers who are like, I'm an artist.

I'm like, yeah.

Yes.

And this is an industry, and it's icky.

It is about access.

It is about power.

I just got lucky and got a job at POV.

That's how I, that's how it happened, you know?

Yeah.

And I mean, also.

I'm a teacher and I'm a producer.

I'm very much like when people ask me what I do professionally,

I'm like, uh, I'm a helper.

I don't know.

But I think that

something that has become important to me is recognizing that the only way I've

gotten where I am is because people gave me opportunities and to try to spread

those opportunities as often as I can.

Keith: You know, Ben and I started this podcast 'cause we wanted

to have more conversations.

You know, we both kind of realized that.

There's not any one way to do this.

There's not a right way to do it.

There's not Right.

Even a common way to do it.

Every, everybody's kind of path is, is uncommon.

Mm-hmm.

And so you've now worked with hundreds of filmmakers as an impact producer

and as an education consultant.

What are some speaking to an audience, hopefully if people emerging into this

field trying to figure out how to not just make a project but make a career like.

Have you seen any commonalities with the view that you've had working

with all the different filmmakers?

Courtney: Uh, career?

I mean, the, I, I can offer things.

I think that the framing of a career, right, like that makes it challenging.

It's like when students come to me and say, I wanna get a

PhD, will you write me a rec?

Then like, out of a sense of ethics, I sit down and have long conversations

with them about their mental health, their financial support, and, and try

to be honest about the things that.

People do not talk about.

Woo.

I knew it was gonna happen.

It is

Keith: a

Courtney: windy

Keith: day and I'm, it's a windy day, hopeful that these little fuzzy things

on the end of our microphones are,

Courtney: we can turn around and then go that way away from

Keith: you.

You wanna show that?

I think we should.

Courtney: I mean, something I try to tell students when they're doing that

is just like, the reality is, 'cause my PhD for instance, was like, it was

like political training, you know?

Where we talked about power.

Everybody's like a neo feminist, Marxist, anti-colonial.

These are the people that are training me.

Mm-hmm.

And yet none of us had like candid conversations about the material realities

of student debt and like living with so little money or different positions.

You know, I was in PhD school with people who were new mothers.

And I just think that like if I were talking to certain people now about like.

Wanting to make a film outta this, which, or a career outta this, which

I guess I will perhaps, when I'm teaching at Texas State, it has to be a

structurally attuned, um, conversation.

Say, say

Keith: more about that.

What do you mean?

Courtney: I mean that like, if you're lucky enough to be born

to a family and continue to have relationships with that family mm-hmm.

Over the course of your life and.

That family has wealth or money or particular types of identity privilege

that will support you being able just to be like, I wanna be whatever I want.

You know?

Then perhaps you could try to make a career out of documentary filmmaking.

But then the question is like, can you make a good film?

Like, you know, are you a good filmmaker?

Are you a good storyteller?

And in what ways do you orient yourself to the world that we're all sharing?

And so I think that if you basically, like if you're already kind of rich,

maybe you can make a career, a singular career out of documentary filmmaking,

or if you work in the industry, but also working in the industry.

It's like you're working at public arts nonprofits, so you have to make choices.

Keith: What if you're not kind of rich?

Courtney: I mean, every documentary filmmaker I've worked with for

the most part is really scrappy.

Yeah.

And I think community, you know, community is important.

I've never been kind of rich.

I'd love to be kind of rich.

I'd love to be really rich, actually.

I mean, there is something like, I think it's, I think

our experience really matters.

Tracy: Yeah.

Courtney: And so I grew up in kind of like a rough and tumble kind of

way, and that has informed how I relate to the world and people in it.

It makes me ask different questions, like all of our experience kind of

informed the questions that we ask.

And how we relate to the world.

So I think there's a lot of benefits.

I'm not saying that like really rich people can't ask good questions.

Don't get me wrong, don't cancel me.

But the historic track for making documentaries as an independent

filmmaker, I think, and finding financial support was public funds through

Corporation for Public Broadcasting, filtered through ITVS films Get

distributed on POV independent lens.

This is like a classic historic way, particularly to support

marginalized filmmakers or people from marginalized communities.

And that money is gone, like actually zero.

So these institutions which have historically funded,

are looking for money.

People have stepped up, but it's a huge gap.

So I don't know when I, when I hear questions about like the future

of filmmaking, making it a career.

You know, as another kind of element of ethics, I produce films also, and

when I'm talking to to people, I talk about like labor practices and producers

often don't get paid right until later.

But we need to also, like if we want to advocate for this industry as if it is a

business now, this practice as if it is.

A career, then we need to also treat it and the people that we're working

alongside as if it is their careers.

Right.

Keith: the problem, I mean, I appreciate all that.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Keith: I don't know, I always run into some real problems when you get into

this concept of like, producers don't get paid because, you know, people

who start restaurants don't get paid.

People who Right.

Launch a fashion line outta their garage.

Don't get paid.

Yeah.

Like this is an entrepreneurial business.

Right.

And.

So in a lot of ways you, you eat, but you kill when you are above the line.

Courtney: Sure.

Keith: And, and

Courtney: you can always make a choice, right.

You can choose not to produce.

It's just oftentimes it's not your idea that you're pursuing, you're helping

somebody kind of realize their idea.

Keith: Oh, I, and that, that's a good distinction.

Yeah.

When I partner with somebody, which I do on all my projects in one way or another.

Sure.

You know, the, the early conversations are unpaid because nobody's getting

paid 'cause there's no money, right?

But it becomes almost immediately a question of like, how do we find money?

And then how do we put that money onto the screen and into our pockets?

Because this is also a job that we've created for our ourselves,

Courtney: right?

What I usually do, maybe because I have commitment issues or because I have.

Too many projects at once all the time, I don't know, is like kind

of do a three month trial, two month trial consulting, producing.

That's also for me to like, get a sense of how the director works, like to see if

they're like implementing values that are in alignment with mine before committing.

Keith: And what are you, I'm gonna, I have a rock in my shoe.

That is crazy.

Courtney: Oh yeah.

You want me to hold that?

Um, no, I think I'm okay.

Keith: Um, what are you, uh.

What are you trying to accomplish?

Typically in a three month, I know every project's different and every beginning

of a project's different, but in a typical three month kind of trial period.

Mm-hmm.

What are the benchmarks and the goals?

Courtney: I mean, it depends on where the project is.

Yeah.

There's gonna be different goals, but personally, like I'm trying to just like.

Ask questions, witness how they engage with participants in films and other

people who might come on to collaborate.

I'm trying to kind of see if they're very organized.

Mm-hmm.

Um, if they do what they say they're gonna do.

Yeah.

If they have clear visions, if they're open to feedback and to integrating

feedback, if it's gonna be more collaborative or if they're looking

for like, you know, a producer to just make money and manage the budget.

That's not really my.

I'm not trying.

That's not fun.

Yeah, it's not fun about your strength.

Yeah.

I'm just trying to get a sense of who they are, and I think that's actually

something that we sort of miss in this industry in the last few years.

I think we've been asking like, who are you to tell this story?

Tracy: Yeah.

Courtney: What is your relationship?

But this community, you know, what ethical considerations did you

grapple with while making this?

But oftentimes we forget to ask, who are you and how do you operate in this world?

Like, what is your relationship to power?

How do you understand that?

And I'm much more interested in knowing kind of like the qualities of a director's

character, which three months isn't enough time to like assess a character.

I'm not over here judging, but it's just kind of a goodness of fit trial for me.

Sure.

And then, you know, if I come on board, I'm not drawing money from the budget.

Right.

'cause now I'm the producer and I wanna be sure that we have money in the budget

to pay for any archival or sound mixing.

Like whatever we're gonna need.

It is just always gonna be a real struggle.

Nobody becomes a documentary filmmaker because they wanna be rich.

And if they do, that's a wild idea.

Keith: A model that I've applied not, not consistently across the board.

Mm-hmm.

But we've kind of toyed with is kind of a percentage model that just says

like, I'm always the director, producer.

Mm-hmm.

And as a producer, you know, my responsibility is very.

Project to project based on who my partners are, but I always

have other producers with me.

But I would say like for on average, let's say as a director

of producer, probably about 15%

Tracy: mm-hmm.

Keith: Of every dollar that comes in is gonna end up coming to me and my key

primary producer that I'm partnering with

Tracy: mm-hmm.

Keith: Is probably gonna get 10 to 12% of every dollar that's coming in.

Tracy: Mm-hmm.

Keith: And we used to wait till the end to get paid.

Which discovered meant we weren't gonna get paid.

Right.

Like we were gonna

Courtney: become and you're just gonna be negative.

We're just gonna be

Keith: the last investors in the Yes.

Courtney: Exactly.

Keith: And so now is just like, every dollar that comes in, I'm

just gonna take that 15% and she, she or he's gonna take that.

Yeah.

10 or 12%.

Courtney: That's a good model.

What's

Keith: left is, you know, about 70, 75%.

That's, that's still there.

Courtney: Did you just say six, seven?

I, yeah.

Keith: Lemme take a second here and just point out where we are.

So we've been walking around Mueller Lake, we're coming up on this, this tower.

Which is kind of like one of the old Austin icons.

This whole neighborhood, that lake, that pond, the streets we're walking, used to

be the airport here in Austin for decades.

And this little kind of rinky-dink, but beautiful mid-century tower

was the air traffic control tower.

This little tower used to be sitting in the middle of an empty space surrounded

by runways, and now it's surrounded by a mixture of low income housing and.

High income housing.

Mm-hmm.

And the swimming pools and trails and parks and dock walks walking around.

I just wanted to put it out.

That's nice.

Yeah.

I've mentioned before on the podcast that I do this dock intensive with

a FS, and that's how I met Courtney is a FS invited you to join based

on your experience with PBS and.

We've had some feisty exchanges in that room.

Oh, yeah.

Uh, this has bad

Courtney: attitude.

Remember

Keith: I said

Courtney: it from the beginning.

Keith: I think, you know, we can meet each other, uh, sometimes, and

I think especially, and I think it's harder, I think it's harder to get

feisty on a one-on-one, on a windy day.

Sure.

But like, I think where some of our feistiness has come is that we

have been representing kind of our own perspectives to a room full

of listening, emerging filmmakers.

Right.

And wanting them to kind of see.

There's more than the perspective that they've brought into the room.

Yeah.

But there aren't easy answers.

Like for me, there aren't easy answers.

Right.

Of course.

You know, um, as somebody, you know, just demographically

speaking, I am a, I just turned 50.

I am like in

Courtney: January.

Keith: In November, okay.

Okay.

So not just us, but Are you s

Courtney: November Sed?

Oh, I'm a cow.

Oh,

Keith: there you go.

We're pals.

Courtney: Yeah.

Keith: I'm a 50-year-old white man.

Mm-hmm.

Who gets up every day and says, I'm gonna go do this job that nobody's asking

me to do, whether they like it or not.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

You know?

Cool.

Yeah.

And so, you know, to, to sustain that across multiple projects

and multiple ideas Yeah.

And kind of straddling different corners of the industry.

Mm-hmm.

You have to be a little willful and you have to be a little bit,

um, kind of ego driven, honestly.

Mm-hmm.

But you also, if you wanna engage with this world, you have to be a

listener and you have to kind of figure out like what's changing and why.

And you've, I think it formed that in me quite a bit and like in ways

you probably don't even know about and like ways that, you know, like,

kind of like linger sometimes.

You know that I scratch that.

Annoyingly at the edge.

That's

Courtney: right.

I like to get on people's nerves and haunt them.

That's what I would ask filmmakers.

What do you want people to be haunted by when they see your film?

Oh, that's a great question.

Yeah.

So it could be a good haunting or a bad haunting, but just

like, yeah, like a little rash.

Uh, go away.

You know, easy questions aren't gonna make.

For an interesting conversation, like what I always tell students is 'cause people

have a hard time not having answers.

Yeah.

And I've always taught classes that don't have answers.

And it sucks for students and it sucks.

It sucks for me.

It sucks for me too.

Still sometimes.

But like the goal I think for me is to learn how to ask better questions.

That's always the goal.

And if we can ask better questions, then naturally we will discover

more and more and more, more.

But so often I think we're taught, like the goal in this

life is to have the answer.

Keith: It feels like not only have, are we taught that in the capitalist society.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

Like those are those who have the answers or at least act like

they do are the, you know mm-hmm.

Rewarded.

But that's true in the documentary world too.

Like you, I mean, yes, there are smaller and smaller and smaller

and fewer and fewer grants.

Mm-hmm.

I hadn't applied for a grant in about seven years, and this year I

started applying for grants again because all the resources are tied up.

Why not?

And uh, and exactly.

And I have been denied lots of grants this year.

Yeah.

And it's been, uh, you know what I expected and it's been fine and it's, what

I tell people when they apply for grants is like, don't bank on getting that money,

but use that opportunity in applying for grants, in answering their questions to

figure out what your project is going

Courtney: 100%.

Keith: And so even when I don't apply for grants, I still like

apply that same matrix of.

Of questioning to my process because if I don't, I will kind of skidder along

without really knowing why I am drawn to a thing, what I hope it can do.

Yeah, what it can be.

It's just like a gut level thing for, for me, I think it's true for a

lot of storytellers and filmmakers, it's a gut level thing, but

when you apply for these grants, when you go in front of executives,

when you go in front of panel, uh, PBS panels, pitch panels mm-hmm.

Like they expect and want you to have answers.

To a process that can only be answered by doing Exactly.

That can only be answered by making,

Courtney: oh my God.

Yeah.

It's kind of set up to be really frustrating.

That's how I felt about my dissertation, which took like four

years was a book was so intense, um, was theoretically promiscuous.

That's how I identify.

Uh, yeah.

And they wanted me, it's like a process of inquiry, I think that.

You know, it's good to have an orient.

I you, I like the freedom of like orientation as a language or like, how

am I turning to face this question now?

How am I turning to face this question now or this story, or

this part of the story or this arc?

You know, like that's interesting and it allows a little bit of

like playfulness and criticality.

Yeah.

If we like have the singular question and we circle around it.

And it changes our perspective on it.

So I'm a writer, like I'm very good at writing.

My background is in writing.

I used to be a writing teacher.

It is a strength.

I feel like because I'm 41 now, I get to say that I'm good at

something without feeling like, so you, I'm too high on myself.

Um, you were always good

Keith: at it, but now you can end it.

Now

Courtney: I can say it Damnit.

Um, and you know, writing is, it's a craft, it's a practice, it's a process.

So I think, you know, when it comes to like writing these grants

and describing a film, it's very different than making the film.

It's very different than cutting a film.

It's very different than identifying selects.

Uh, but you have to be able to just really sit with, sit with each

project, which, which also should require sitting with yourself.

Yeah.

In relation to the project.

And getting back to all these conversations we had about, you know,

identity, position, power, relationships to the world, and structures in

my, in my view, it all is linked.

It's all interconnected and exhausting.

It's really tiring, interconnected,

Tracy: and

Courtney: exhausting.

It's exhausting.

Yeah.

Keith: Uh, you know, in each episode we, uh, we look for like something that comes

out of the guest's mouth as the title.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, you said something a moment ago that, you know, it's.

Everybody expects answers.

Mm-hmm.

Or everybody, it's about tough questions.

Mm-hmm.

I thought, oh, that's the, that's the name of this episode.

Courtney: Better questions.

Keith: Better Questions.

Ask better questions.

Better questions.

Ask better questions.

Courtney Could, but then you said you are.

It's okay.

Strategically, uh, you, you were talking about your dissertation.

Oh yeah.

And it was

Courtney: theoretically promiscuous.

Theoretically promiscuous, yeah.

That's a phrase that people don't need to remember.

That's just my own weird, theoretically promiscuous.

Yeah.

Keith: What does that mean?

Courtney: So cultural studies as as a field, is a field that emerged in the

UK because all of these leftists thought that separating disciplines like English

history, political science, was part of a larger project of political domination.

It means that I'm not like bound to sociology or bound to historical

discipline or theories that I'm using theories from, like post-structural

feminist, I'm using theories from.

Black feminist thought.

I'm using theories from literary critique and I have to kind of, well,

when I was a practicing academic, which I'm not right now, I would have

to kind of live across all of those

Tracy: or,

Courtney: yeah.

And then legitimize and justify, which is a real pain in the ass.

Yeah.

When you're dealing with an institution.

But my opinion, it makes for more interesting thought,