What significance does the title have?
DH: The title is not only about a very important technique in cooking, it represents how people should be in order to find that balance in life! The prison chef, Tony, advises Cyrus, the main character, to learn how to cook from a real teacher, and not rush back into his old way of living because it’s easy.
OS: Essentially, he's telling Cyrus to “Simmer”— to learn and to grow into the chef he’s destined to become. In the film, he's also teaching Cyrus about making soup stock, and tells him to never let it boil, "only simmer."
DH: The soup stock is a metaphor for Cyrus' life. Simmer, or else...
OS: Not only is Cyrus dealing with re-entering society after being released from prison, he has discovered a strong passion and skill for culinary arts. In pursuing this, he knows that he's going to deal with lots of roadblocks along the way. "Simmer" ends with his decision— to apply or not to apply for culinary school. Not to give it away, but in the feature screenplay, we spend most of our time at culinary school with Cyrus. We drew on Derrick’s experiences, as one of just three students of color, to illustrate these challenges as well as triumphs.
DH: In both the short film and the feature script, Cyrus faces a great deal of tragedy and obstacles, and as he grows, he learns how to channel that into his love for food, rather than let it weigh him down.
How did this project come to be?
DH: When I first stepped onto The Culinary Institute of America’s campus in Hyde Park, NY and there was nothing but white faces. That got my creative wheels spinning and years later I needed someone who could help me write the story, so I found Owen Schwartzbard.
OS: This story was full of elements that were new to me— for starters, New Orleans culture, culinary arts, not to mention writing an African-American protagonist. It definitely made me hesitate and think, am I really the person to co-write this? I knew there were some very powerful themes in this story that I connected to, and Derrick and I seemed to sync up on a lot of ideas— not just about this film, but about storytelling and art. So we went for it. Luckily, we found that we were able to both bring things to the table to write this script, and I think that’s what makes it so strong. It’s a collaboration of two voices from different backgrounds, which in many ways reflects some of the film’s central themes.
What is it like to co-create a film? What was your process?
DH: All I can say right now is, what an accomplishment! It's still so surreal that our characters have come to life. It’s like, wow, we made this thing. I must admit that it was not that hard writing " Simmer" because we just took a scene out from our feature script "Cry of a Butterfly, " and truly created a brilliant short film. For the feature film, we would have long phone calls for the most part, discuss ideas, and then Owen would script it out and send me drafts. From there we’d repeat the process.
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