Meet Ruby L. Oliver, feature filmmaker.
She demonstrated her purpose-fulness early on in her first career, day care. “As a little girl,” she says, “I’d wanted to be a principal of a school. I loved children; it was second nature.” Instead, she settled for something close to it. A poor girl from the south side, Oliver spent a few years in the Navy and then found work in the post office. She saved her money and at age 23, with a loan from the Small Business Association, she became the proud owner of the Little Folks Cottage Kindergarten and Nursery School. Her business soon prospered; she eventually owned and operated three more centers, on the south and west sides, and she moved north into a tony Lake Forest mansion.
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Why no other investors? “I know better than to ask my friends to put money in a movie. Black people are not accustomed to investing in the arts.” Such conservatism has been a source of frustration and irritation to local filmmakers who do not command resources comparable to Oliver’s. “There is no tradition of film investing like in the Jewish community,” concurs filmmaker Michele Crenshaw, who is readying a project of her own. “The money is so limited that we end up competing against each other instead of working together.”
Last July, shortly after Love Your Mama played to sold-out houses at the Film Center, Oliver moved to LA, hoping to catch the attention of Hollywood bigwigs. Instead, she was approached by an obscure independent distributor who promised prompt booking into theaters across the country. She signed, against her own better judgment. After a year of inactivity and continued lack of interest from Hollywood, she says she got fed up and decided to take matters into her own hands. The engagement at the Film Center represents a new beginning. “I don’t focus on the negative,” she says. “They tell me only three black women have ever made a film. Only three. I’ve been black and female all my life, so what! I am not naive. I know blacks get very little of the pie. There’s no sense complaining. Let’s make that pie bigger. I intend to get my slice.”
