Quotes from Roger Ross Williams

The establishment wants to connect with people who are like them, and I wasn't. I'm a black gay man from a poor working-class family. Most of the people who look like me are in prison.

I have learned that the hardest part of campaigning for tolerance and justice is encouraging people to look at their own selves, to examine their own identity and shortcomings.

The Academy just reflects Hollywood. And until we break those barriers, until we have African-American or minority studio executives, 'til we have people who are greenlighting movies with African-American actors - the Academy is not going to change until Hollywood changes, so we have to start with Hollywood.

I can't believe that I'm sitting in meetings with Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Annette Bening. I want to take on that responsibility to represent all the Rogers out there who don't have a seat at the table. People of colour were not at the table, and now I am there, I want to change things.

When I was in high school, I felt totally alienated from the world, but I loved movies. They were my escape, but coming from a disadvantaged community, I never knew that filmmaking was an option for me. A program like School of Doc would have been a game-changer.

I want to look at the community I came from and what role incarceration has played there.

I went to church every Sunday and sang in the choir. But for all that the church gave me - for all that it represented belonging, love and community - it also shut its doors to me as a gay person. That experience left me with the lifelong desire to explore the power of religion to transform lives or destroy them.

I didn't have a lot of exposure to films as a kid, and I never went to the cinema. I had a single mom who just planted me in front of the television. But while growing up, I lived in my own fantasy world.

The long journey I've taken from where I started, and to end up at the Governors Awards as a governor - it was an emotional and powerful moment for me.

When I decided to make 'Blackface,' a short film about Black Pete, I had little knowledge of the giant cesspool of hate I was about to dive into. I didn't realize how popular and passionate many white Dutch are about a figure that they connect to fond memories from their childhood.

When I was filming 'Prudence' in Zimbabwe, I noticed the hold fundamentalist Christianity had on sub-Saharan Africa. So I thought I'd like to make a film about religion in Africa because the prosperity gospel is big business where people are desperate, poor, and sick.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist-style church with a choir, a band, and music, but I've been asking myself my whole life, 'Why is my own church, my own community, rejecting me because of my sexuality?'

What is so attractive about Uganda for missionaries is that they have free rein. They can go anywhere they please - schools, hospitals, the parliament.

I began filming 'God Loves Uganda' by first meeting some of the Ugandan and American missionaries who have helped create Uganda's evangelical movement. They were often large-hearted. They were passionate and committed.

'God Loves Uganda' is a powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to change African culture with values imported from America's Christian Right. The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting 'sexual immorality' and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow Biblical law.

All the politicians in Uganda play to their fundamentalist benefactors in America because of the flow of money.

I grew up in the church, and I went into the production of 'God Loves Uganda' intending to raise awareness of the abuse of religious power in Uganda, and after 30 public appearances, I have learned a lot about how people receive this sort of message.

The more I learned about religion in Africa, the more intrigued I became. It was as if the continent was gripped with religious fervor. And the center of it was Uganda.

While shooting in Uganda in 2011, the conservative evangelical pastors I was filming - the most ardent supporters of the country's now infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill - discovered that I myself am gay.

The war against homosexuality in Uganda is fueled by the funds of American Christian missionary churches.

I just didn't realize the unbelievable impact Disney films had on American society until my assistant coached me on the stories and brought me up to speed.

Don't boycott the Oscars. Staying away from something that needs to change is no way to change it. Instead, let's help them lead the way in promoting diversity in Hollywood.

Even after I won the Oscar, my phone did not ring. No one called me to fund films or offer projects.

I felt like I was an outsider growing up in the black church, as a gay man, in a poor community.