Spike Lee and Kyle Bell, Phyllida Lloyd and Whitney White… Rolex Celebrates Two Decades of Artistic Education

“The fine balance of mentoring is not to make someone else in your image, but to give them the opportunity to make themselves,” said Steven Spielberg. Since 2002, Rolex’s Mentor & Protégé program has sought to weave and explore this delicate and elastic bond that binds two forms of creativity, one already mature and the other still nascent, in the service of art. Every two years, this program creates five duos of artists, filmmakers, architects, directors, choreographers and dancers, writers or photographers who commit to spend time together, at least six weeks, often much more, each tandem agrees; the location and modes of these interactions. This year, right in the heart of Brooklyn, on the stage of BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), the story of this two-headed creation unfolded and unfolded, under the eyes of an enthralled audience, and became especially intense two years later. about the epidemic and the subsequent bans. Brooklyn, one of the epicenters of the Covid epidemic in the US, is still deeply marked by the exodus. With the injustice of a two-tier health care system, too, which lends an even more serious tone to the questions of identity that mark this publication. What does it mean to be a minority artist? How to carry its message and the voice of the excluded without being used for it? How to find a universal language through art?

The delicate balance of mentoring is not to create someone else in their own image, but to empower them to create themselves

Steven Spielberg

The art of sharing

“What does it mean to be an American in the world today, Spike Lee attacks. That’s the question that haunts me.” The one who also made him accept his mission as a mentor. “Our country was built on two pillars, he continues: slavery and land stolen from the natives… When I was young, I hated John Wayne movies. I agreed to mentor a young filmmaker only if he came from a forgotten population. That’s how I was introduced to my brother, Kyle Bell, who grew up on Thlopthlocco Reserve.”
35-year-old director Kyle is not completely unknown. His first short films were noticed at the Sundance Film Festival. They talk about suicide, ghosts, forced departure. About what it means to grow without hope and without roots, because survival means leaving the land of the ancestors. How to build then? “Spike gave me the confidence to release these films, to speak up, to use my voice,” she explains. The interested party, the hat pushed down the nose, the neck swallowed the jacket, nodded. “Yes, I was able to give such advice. let there be more of this scene. But my role above all was to say that I don’t want to hear “I will try” anymore, but “I will try”, – asserts the film director with applause.

I agreed to mentor a young filmmaker only if he came from a forgotten population

Spike Lee

Say yes, say no

“I’m a minority too,” continues director and director Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia, The Iron Lady…), young musician and multiple award-winning director Whitney White’s advisor. There are a lot of white men in my profession. The opportunity to mentor a young black woman between two continents was invaluable to me.” “He was stuck in England and I was stuck in New York during the pandemic. We were holding hands across the Atlantic, says Whitney. Phyllida taught me that I had to feel legitimate, even to say no, because after Black Live Matters I was invited everywhere as a minority quota. Phyllida taught me not to sell out. They worked together on Whitney’s performance, a concert designed around the word “refugee.” A breathtaking show that leaves the audience stunned. “It’s Whitney who has to help me,” Phyllida smiles. And Spike Lee concludes: “Become a teacher and students will teach you.”

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