I won't tell you that it's gonna be okay.

I won't tell you that it's going to be okay.

And welcome to another episode of the Bakari Sellers podcast.

Today I actually have a fun interview for you guys because this artist as I shall call him a

documentarian artist director writer producer all of those things has an amazing

project out on the way and none other than Pete Nix. How are you today?

I'm doing good, but Kari, thanks for having me on.

Oh man, it's a blessing and you know, we begin our shows the same way by having our guests walk us through the arc of their careers and you've been a writer, director, and producer for some time, so walk us through your career arc since finishing Howard and what was your first big break in the entertainment

industry?

Man, how do I do it in a quick one?

Yeah, so, so, so, went from Howard to Berkeley.

I knew I wanted to study documentary film.

And John Els had just joined the faculty

taking over from the great Marlon Riggs

at the Berkeley at the graduate School of Journalism and you know I knew I wanted to study with John and that sort of began after I came out of Berkeley I started sort of in the PBS world working for

Frontline did a big worked as an associate producer on a series about the war on

drugs and that you know I'd say that that was sort of my break in a way because it introduced me to this whole ecosystem of producers and writers and you know, I stayed within that ecosystem, PBS and ABC for a number of years before I kind of got the itch to do independent documentary work and my wife was working at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California as a speech pathologist and she's a refugee from Laos and you know that that patient population

was at the center of a national conversation around health care reform and I felt that these stories that she was bringing home

to me felt very powerful and I felt that they weren't being heard

in the sort of national conversation around health care,

which was dominated by like politicians,

media opponents, etc. And so I felt like I just wanted to make a film about this

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