The reason I'm here is because Jordan Peele saw Kicks' and loved it, Tipping said during a phone interview. Around the time that was being released he had won an Academy Award (best original screenplay for Get Out) and had just started Monkeypaw Productions. He wanted to meet young filmmakers and wanted to meet me. So the seed was planted.
I had a gay professor in college at a time when openly gay folks still weren't out a lot, who became one of my favourite professors and was a great guy and would call me out when I started saying stuff that was ignorant.