Pineloft Entertainment’s Dane Clarke II, Joel Poku, and Cole Swanson on Breaking Ground as Black Filmmakers
During Tribeca Film Festival week, the duo recently screened Betty & Blue with Pineloft.
Photo by 20 Williams
These guys are tastemakers. West Orange natives Dane Clarke II (CEO & Founder) and Joel Poku (Brand Director/Partner) are two halves of the dapper indie production company Pineloft Entertainment and grew up together in New Jersey. While attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Dane later connected with Pineloft’s titular director-collaborator Cole Swanson.
Converse’s All-Star incubator program for young creatives assisted in bringing to life Cole’s brainchild, Betty & Blue, a poignant tale about a Black musician and his beloved trumpet, Betty, shot on film. The short was screened at the historic Cinema Village in early June, originally intended to be a swanky mixer for those in the indie scene who don’t traditionally get the same invites as higher-profile clientele.
Simply put, the trio are the cool kids spearheading an even more remarkable movement within the film industry. They’ve identified a gap in the contemporary scene, and New Wave Black Naturalism™ is their solution. Coined exclusively by the crew themselves, they aim to capture Black stories centering on experiences of joy rather than trauma. “What that means to us is seeing stories with black characters that might perhaps be in unconventional spaces, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're impossible spaces for them to live and thrive and love and create in,” explained Cole.
Zooming in from Fort Lauderdale while down in the Sunshine State for the American Black Film Festival, the young filmmakers talked to 1202 MAGAZINE about their mad dash to locate a venue ahead of Tribeca week, coining New Wave Black Naturalism™ and the scoop on their upcoming feature film Bloom.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
You guys are currently in Miami for the American Black Film Festival (ABFF). How has that experience been for you?
Dane: We’re in Fort Lauderdale now; we had to get out of Miami. We were in Miami for a long time, so now we’re just decompressing before we head back to Jersey. Very excited to get back to work and get in the groove of things. ABFF is a hub of culture and has a lot of different events, but I think the most fun part about ABFF was exploring new parts of Miami. There was this HiFi lounge, which was super sick, called Dante, spinning great vinyl, and we met a lot of great people. Cole’s mother actually had a film screening at ABFF for Albany Road.
Cole: It’s her feature film she’s been working on for a while, so they had a spotlight screening down at the festival, which was cool. Some of the cast and crew were there. But it’s ABFF; everyone from Black Hollywood is there, so we felt we were in good company. It’s cool that people are seeing the new generation coming through, and it probably won’t be the last time we’re at that festival.
Joel: Apart from the festival overall, like Dane was saying, Miami is a fun place to be. We can come to Little Havana, dancing salsa with Cubans, then we’re going to the HiFi lounge, then we’re going to the ocean, and we’re going to the pool and the hotel, it’s a fun place to be apart from the fest. It’s our first time being in Miami proper. It’s been a great time, but I’m ready to go back to Jersey.
Photo by Belle Fall
Can you share with me how you all got connected?
Dane: Joel and I have known each other since we were kids. We grew up in West Orange, New Jersey, and growing up, I was a competitive skateboarder, so street skateboarding was my sport. Joel was always hanging out with our filmer, but we got closer in high school and started hanging out more. Since he was older than me, he graduated, and being a Ghanaian man, his parents were like, ‘You still gotta go to school, you still gotta make some money.’ He went to school for business, and I found entertainment when I was in high school, so I went to NYU for theater and producing for TV and film with a focus on entertainment law. He graduated in 2020. I just started my production company, and I told him about it.
Joel: I went to business school at Northeastern, where I worked in accounting for three and a half years. I worked at this accounting and tax services firm for high-net-worth individuals. I had moved back to New York, and Dane was in his last year at NYU when he started Pineloft. Because we had been friends for so long, we just started hanging out again. We’ll go to events, and he’d say, ‘I have this thing called Pineloft I just started,’ and I was like, ‘Cool.’ But then, over time, I started helping him out by doing budgets and line-producing work because I came from that accounting world. We went on our first set together, and I was just enthralled with producing and that side of the film world. He ended up poaching me from my accounting job, and I ended up leaving maybe two years ago to work alongside Dane full-time at Pineloft, and that’s why we’ve been running it ever since.
Dane: He’s being modest. I knew Joel as a kid. You could look through magazines and point to a chair, and he’d tell you about the designer behind the chair. I always knew he had this brand and niche mindset, something that I didn’t have and still don’t have. He’s also a very big advocate for architecture and engineering, and I was like, damn, that’s what’s missing at the company and as a partner. That’s what he brings to the table. Then, I met Cole at NYU.
Cole: Dane was a year ahead of me, but at Tisch, everyone takes different classes, so we were in this music for a film class that was geared more towards like for directors who are working with composers or composers themselves. This kid comes in, and we’re the only two Black kids in the room. Naturally, we gravitated towards each other, and he introduced himself as an actor and producer. I had my antenna up when he said actor, and I let him know that I’ll have something for him when the time’s right. About a year later, I threw him the script to Betty & Blue, and he was like, ‘You know what? I’m also a producer, and I’d love to take this to Joel and my company, Pineloft, and see what we can do with this.’ And the rest is history. We’re now all like brothers; we travel all over the place together. I put so much trust in these guys, and I’m just grateful they trust me as well because we’re ready to shake up the industry and take risks. You need people to support those risk-taking endeavors. These are my guys.
Photo by 20 Williams
You mentioned Betty & Blue. When did you start ideating the concept?
Cole: I always feel like any project I do has always been subconsciously brewing. I lived in New York and went to Tisch. I love jazz, so I naturally wanted to tell a story about it. I can count a lot of jazz films on two hands, and most of them aren't great. I think most people's favorite jazz film is La La Land, and that's not necessarily a Black jazz story. I wanted to throw a hat in the ring, so I wrote Betty & Blue. I knew I always wanted to have an older Black gentleman tell the story of his life as a trumpeter in New York at a very particular time in history. Honestly, I wrote the script in a week. I got it to them, and we kept the gears moving from there. We found our composer and figured out how we would shoot it and our intention behind it.
Joel: It’s important to note that Cole wrote that in a week because Cole's a Converse All-Star; a Converse incubator program for young creatives. They essentially had this pitching program where the All-Stars could pitch any project to the committee, and you could win a grant to make a project come to life. Cole had written Betty and Blue to make the deadline and had to do it in a week. He decided at the last minute to let me get something off for this pitch. I think what was important to note was when Dane and I received the materials for Betty.
Dane: Cole told us about this Converse grant, the hypothetical of it. The materials and Cole's vision were so strong that we told him, ‘Whether or not we get this grant, we’re gonna make this film.’ The grant would be great to kickstart it, but the story and his creativity were so strong that this is something we wanted to make regardless. We're going to figure it out regardless, by any means.
Cole: There wasn't any, ‘We're only going to do this if we get money from Converse’ because that wasn't an option. It was like, ‘Let's get the money from Converse. That's great, but we're already going to get motion on it.’ That's when I realized that Betty & Blue was legitimately going to be my next project because, at the time, this grant and the application came out of nowhere. I wasn't thinking about making it a jazz film that soon. I always wanted to, but it came sooner because of the Converse opportunity and the fact that they were willing to make it regardless.
How did the Cinema Village private screening come about?
Dane: It was last month when we had the idea of doing it. It’s funny, the after party came first. We were like, ‘Let's do a party during Tribeca. Let's do a mixer for the people in independent cinema who don't get the opportunity to go to those high-profile, high-clientele parties at these festivals.’ They tend to be the short filmmakers, who are just as talented as the indie filmmakers, but they aren't getting those invites. We thought we had a strong connection to a lot of people in the city, so let's host something where they can meet the financiers and executives and make connections. From that, if we're going to have everyone in the city anyway, we might as well try and show both the shorts we did last year because as much as it is about the directors, it's also about producing it. We like to say we're front-facing producers, so we thought, ‘How can we get out to the world?’ The brand of Pineloft, this Tribeca season, and Pineloft Afterhours were the first thing we thought of. Then we were like, ‘You know what? We need to have a screening beforehand.’ It was a mad dash.
Joel: I think Cole texted us three or four weeks before the actual event and said, ‘Man, it would be great if we could do a screening for Betty & Blue in NYC; we kind of deserve it.’ I thought most of the crew was from New York, and they never got to see the film. I texted Dane on the side like, ‘We gotta make this happen.’ This is not only for our brand but also for the people who made the film happen, for them to see all the hard work they put in. It only makes sense to do it during Tribeca because we already planned an event anyway to attract as many people in the industry as possible. That's how it happened. It was a mad dash; we had three weeks to find a venue for the films and an after-party venue for the event and make it all happen. It's during Tribeca, so most of the theater venues are booked out, so we really got lucky. I can tell you straight: Dane and I were on foot for a few days in Manhattan from Harlem to Midtown to Tribeca, just going in person to see these theaters. Cinema Village was the only one open and receptive to working with young filmmakers. I'm grateful for them forever because it was an important event, and we had to make it happen. It's only because they were so gracious and hosted us that we got to make it happen. That's really how it happened.
Photo by 20 Williams
What does New Wave Black Naturalism™ mean for you?
Cole: So we're in Jersey at a seafood joint, and we're all sitting there thinking, ‘What would describe this genre of stories and the types of stories that not only myself but that these guys like to tell as well and that we care about and we continue to push forth into the atmosphere?’ Honestly, it was New Wave Black Naturalism™. It was a weird combination; we threw out all of the words and we put them in the order. What that means to us is to see stories with Black characters that might be in unconventional spaces, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're impossible spaces for them to live, thrive, love, and create in. The key thing is to see Black life unapologetically being fruitful, lively, and vibrant. Whether we see these Black characters in Italy, Japan, South Africa, or somewhere in the States, the common denominator throughout all of these stories is that there are Black characters who are just enjoying life. These stories also do not fall into the pitfalls of trauma and rather use Black Joy as the catalyst for the storytelling. You have movements like the Black Rebellion, Black Realism, and Blaxploitation. All these things are great. Without any of these movements, we're not here. On the other hand, we have such a unique and fresh perspective on filmmaking, storytelling, and what our stories look like. There's this great NPR article about the danger of this, of a single story. We don't have one story, we have numerous stories, and these stories exist in so many different places. We've all been very lucky to have traveled. We're well-traveled. We love to travel. We love to experience new things. And I want my characters to do that as well on the big screen.
Dane: Like [Cole] said, it's New Wave Black Naturalism™ like Betty & Blue is. We also have Bloom in Italy. We have these different stories, and we're very excited. I think the industry is very excited about a shakeup, too. To put on the record, we trademarked New Wave Black Naturalism™. It's never been said before. It's never been done before. It's been done, but no one's ever put a name to it. It’s trademarked, we've been using it, and we're going to keep using it to specifically describe Cole's filmmaking style.
Cole: I love French New Wave. I think there's something very charming, honest, and authentic about the movies that came out of that era — whether it's Agnès Varda or Éric Rohmer. You have these characters living life, and we're just a fly on the wall. It's a slice of life. As Black people, we don't get that space. It's incredibly rare. Your movies have to be 90 minutes. We can't have moments to breathe, live, and experience life in the moment. I don't want to say my movies don't necessarily have plots, they certainly do. But Bloom is a unique film because it's much of life unfolding. It's just a story, right? We get to follow a character from the start to the end: move from South Central LA, travel to Italy, live there, and experience it for the first time. We're just invited, we're guests, you know? I think that the secret sauce with the New Wave Black Naturalism™ is these new experiences and watching life unfold right before us and having it feel real. That's something we continue to put out.
Photo by Belle Fall
What can you share about Bloom?
Joel: Right now, Bloom is in really late development/early pre-production. We have a soft commitment for financing for the picture, which is why we're down here in Miami at ABFF. We are still gunning to shoot in Fall 2024, in September/October. We went to Tuscany last September with a group of actors that are softly attached to the picture and some soft cast. While we were there, we brought a few photographer friends with us, and we made a Bloom book. We have original images and original footage of us all in Tuscany, and we put it together in this physical art book format. We did that because we've seen so many pitch books, so many lookbooks, and all these digital things. We love the physical medium. Making this book is a way for us to separate ourselves from the pack of other filmmakers who get lazy and make a deck. But we actually took the time out for us to all get over there for us to shoot this art book. Right now, we're using that as our pitch material. Different studios and different financiers have it. We're just gunning to make that in the fall.
Cole: Tyler, the Creator has it, Dave Free over at pgLang, Barry Jenkins, tons of people are getting these books, and they’re like, ‘Wow. I think that there’s a tangible, physical connection to the world again.’ Like Joel said, it separates us a bit from the rest of those filmmakers out there who are also trying to make a movie. This industry is interesting because tons of people get tons of scripts, but when you get a script and a book — a coffee table piece — you definitely flag it, and I think it’s definitely been working in our favor so far.
What/who are your biggest sources of inspiration right now?
Joel: For me, there's just one filmmaker now, a fine artist named Arthur Jafa, and I’m listening to a lot of his interviews. There's one specific one where he says, ‘It's interesting because Black music is the biggest and most popular form of music, whether that's hip-hop, pop, jazz, or R&B. It's always Black music. But for some reason, Black film is nowhere near the level of Black music. It's nowhere near the same quality.’ What that means for me is the same energy and swag that Black people bring to music, I know he wants to bring that to film. I think that's really what we're here for: to bring that same aura and essence that Black music has. That’s why it's captured the world. We want to bring that to film because it's lacking. We do have some incredible Black filmmakers who have come before us and are still with us and will come after us. But it's just not at the same level as Black music. That is my biggest inspiration for why we do this: to bring that same essence and aura that Black music has and add that to Black film and make it just as important as a medium for Black people.
Dane: I always say the real change happens when you get the bigger budget projects. What I particularly look at are the bigger blockbuster films that showcase people who look like us and the numbers they do because, from an independent cinema standpoint, you eventually have to make that leap if you want to be where people can actually bank on you and your company. As a CEO, I really do think of where we can go and how we can bring this to a larger-scale platform. For me, inspiration really does come down to those films with A-list actors that have an artistic vision, and you can see the director's vision in it, but it's still entertaining and gets people there. It gets people in the theaters, it sells, and it works on streaming. That's really my inspiration: looking at the box office numbers, seeing what worked, what didn’t, and why it didn’t work — reading articles about what these execs want to pick up, how we can disrupt the system, make the system work for us, and make people want to come after us.
Cole: I think for me, the box office. The business side of this industry is super, super important. As a director-writer, obviously, I lean more toward the creative, and the story is the number one priority. What kind of stories move me? When I'm not in New York or Miami, and back home in LA, I watch a movie a day. I'm constantly feeding myself and consuming the art form, studying the craft because I graduated from Tisch. I'm a perpetual student. Out of the seven days out of the week, only one of those movies is an American film. For all of those other six movies, I'm looking at Korean cinema, French cinema, and Danish cinema. What in these movies worked and didn't work for me? How can I translate that to my very specific Black stories, Black lens? I love movies, I'm a cinephile. It's why I do what I do. I find inspiration in other filmmakers, especially the ones I admire — like Spike Lee, Agnès Varda, and Eric Rohmer. They're super important to me to keep my tools sharp.
Photo by 20 Williams
What do you each want to achieve in the next few years?
Joel: Dane brought me on as Brand Director. I'm now a partner. I think what's important from my perspective in the next few years is I want Pineloft to be a household name as a brand, not just a production company, but as a brand as a whole. Dane always says that at Pineloft, our references of where we want to sit in the marketplace are almost like an A24 meets a MACRO. A24 has that clean brandability. You sit in a seat, you see their logo, and you know you're in for a treat. You know you can trust their selection. Whereas MACRO similarly has a pulse on Black culture, on the culture as a whole. You want to sit in the middle of that and bring those stories to life. For me, it's focusing on how Pineloft and that key logo can be widespread.
Dane: To piggyback off that, I think a more specific strategy in the next few years is to get a first look or overall deal. We're on the trajectory of doing that within the next two years. The people we're meeting and just building up our slate so that it shows value to the buyers. They can say we give them upfront capital, and they will produce quality work. We definitely want to lock in a first-look deal, either with a streamer or network, and the TV game. We're getting into the TV game. Film is amazing, we love it. But there's something about TV and legacy and the fact that it's a repeating occurrence where people can tune in. That really intrigues all of us. I think that there's a world where in the next two years, with that first-look deal, we piggyback into a TV space and try to dominate.
Cole: Bloom, for me, is at the top of my mind every single day. It's a very personal story, so I want to get it out of my system. I know we're going to be able to do that in the next six to twelve months for everyone else to see that. And once I get that off, the next thing is [Untitled Black Surf Film]. From there, I wanted to recreate Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon but with an entirely Black cast. That’s when things really start to kick off, and I can write that TV show I always wanted to do so I can have fun with it. First, it starts with Bloom and making sure I get that right. I’m the only person on this planet who can tell this story. There’s a lot of pressure there, but it’s what I know. It’s my world, it’s my life. Once I can show that to the world and people can see who I am, hear my voice, and know me as a filmmaker, I’ll feel way more comfortable getting into more fun, big genre, and big budget stuff.
