It Took 22 Years To Get This Film Made. Here’s Why I Didn’t Quit

I was a pawn for most of my life. I was bullied, you know, every day after school until high school.
If you are able to get your pawn with your head down, if you translate it to real life, you just work and get to where you want to go.
Hopefully, when you’re doing it on the chessboard, moving that pawn so that people don’t realize that you’re doing it, you just kind of just do it.
Do it.
It was a rough kind of pawn to queen conversion.
And then suddenly it just, you know, I became what I wanted to become, but late, like 50.
No Bullsh*t Talks is a podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.
There’s too much bullsh*t out there, especially when it comes to business.
This podcast aims to highlight what’s true and what’s not in the world of entrepreneurship.
Bringing you honest and raw conversations about the roller coaster that is entrepreneurship.
Each week, my guest will be a high-performing entrepreneur sharing the ups and downs of their journey and helping you prepare for the road ahead while providing you with actionable insights and absolute gems of knowledge.
Stay tuned as I introduce this week’s guest.
Carla Berkowitz is an executive producer with over 30 years in the film industry.
She is best known for Critical Thinking, the independent film directed by and starring John Leguizamo, which earned a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
What makes her story extraordinary is that she spent 22 years getting that single film made.
I present to you this week’s guest, Carla Berkowitz.

Hello and welcome to a special episode of No Bullsh*t Talks.
As you can see, it looks very different to what it normally looks like in my London studio because I am in sunny Miami.
I am here for the Miami Film Festival.
I am actually starring in a movie, Crazy, which has been executive produced by Keanu Reeves, and so I am here for the Miami Film Festival and the movie is being premiered tomorrow.
So, I am about to introduce a guest on my podcast today who has been producing the film with Keanu Reeves, which is crazy.
She’s a phenomenal woman.
She’s also the executive producer of Critical Thinking, which is a fantastic movie focused around chess, starring John Leguizamo.
And obviously, as a chess master myself and a big passionate educator around chess, I adore the movie and I’m honored to have Carla Berkowitz on my podcast today.
And I just want you to know how incredible this woman is, changing the game of chess and the portrayal of it in the media.
And you get to hear about her journey, how she became the incredible filmmaker she is today and how she’s managed to have her movie airing at the Miami Film Festival tomorrow.
So, I hope you enjoy this episode.
So, welcome Carla to No Bullsh*t Talks.
Carla Berkowitz:
No bullsh*t. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this type of interview.
Sabrina:
I feel like I only do these type of interviews.
I only say the real stuff.
I can’t stand all the PR, like perfectly constructed prepped answers, and you just know they’re bullsh*t and you know that they’ve been prepping for those answers all day and they’re not real.
Carla Berkowitz
They’re not real.
Nothing’s real.
Yeah.
We’ll get to this another time, but the more I listen to you, the more I realize that, for example,

on LinkedIn, let’s say for example, where you get most of your material…
Like a comedian, you know, like a comedian, you get material from places.
I am now able to recognize the NBS of it all to the point where I’m hardly on it anymore.
And it’s kind of sad because I made some of my closest friends in the last 5 years.
They have become friends forever, like you and me.
Even though we live far away, I feel like we’ll never not be friends.
And other people too.
One like Maurice, who you’ll meet, you’ll see.
I mean, you’ll see again tonight.
He’s here tomorrow night, sorry.
He’s coming just for the premiere.
And just other people that I’ve become very close with that I realized that you can just tell right through what they’re writing.
And I’m starting to realize that I think LinkedIn gets a lot of new fish coming in and it takes a while for them to realize the NBS of it all.
And then, so I don’t think it’s ever going to get to the point where people are going to realize that you have to be very careful about listening to people who say stuff to you and reading things and getting all excited, and then it’s just the opposite.
Sabrina Chevann:
Yeah.
And I think that’s the issue with my content that people have, is that because I tell the truth about it and I expose it, like you said, it can be quite depressing.
Sabrina:
It’s very exactly.
Carla Berkowitz:
To know that people are just lying.
They’re cheating.
They’re essentially scamming people out of money.
Everything’s fake.
You don’t know who to trust anymore.
Everything.
Sabrina:
Everything’s fake.
And with AI now, it’s even worse.
Carla Berkowitz:
And why do I…
Why is everything not just fake, but it’s dangerous, you know, to realize that because you fall for it, you do something, you meet with someone, you know, whatever.
And it’s just…
LinkedIn should do a better job.
Sabrina:
They should, but it’s a full-time job policing it.
Like even when I’m going through and I have a form where people submit stuff, and I was so inundated with submissions that I got overwhelmed.
And you know, at the end of the day, LinkedIn is a business and the engagement they get and the chat they get, it’s profitable for them.
So they’re not going to actively chase stuff down.
But I do think there should be some kind of…
I wanted to design a bullsh*t meter where, like, when you type something in, it actually comes up with a public percentage, almost like an AI detector.
Carla Berkowitz:
Yes, exactly.
But with bullsh*t.
So it’s like, how much of this is created by AI?
I’m sure you can code that yourself.
Sabrina:
I actually want to.
I feel like I should do it.
You know, you could do it on like a Chrome extension.
I can.
And have a Chrome extension which detects how much of this is just completely made up bullsh*t.
I believe that entrepreneurship is messy.
It has the highs.
It has the lows.
Carla Berkowitz:
Oh my God, that’s the best thing you’ve said ever.
Sabrina:
It is.
But this is exactly what I show.
It’s funny because I feel entrepreneurship is messy.
Filmmaking is messy.
Life is messy.
Carla Berkowitz:
Life is messy.
Sabrina:
But people only show…
Carla Berkowitz:
So is messy.
Sabrina:
Exactly.
And I just think all these influencers show the perfect life.
And I’ve been here.
I was like, I’m on this big trip in the US.
In case people didn’t realize, I’m actually filming in the US right now.
And most influencers would have been out with their cameras filming how perfect it is.
I woke up in this amazing apartment downtown in Miami today and I had this epic view.
And all I did was send a picture to my husband like, “Oh, this is the view I woke up to.”
Didn’t put it on Instagram.
Didn’t put it on anywhere else.
And most people would be filming all this stuff, crafting like a perfect breakfast morning routine by the swimming pool.
Carla Berkowitz:
Nobody believes you anymore.
Sabrina:
Nobody believes…
Carla Berkowitz:
But people do.
They feel jealous about it.
Sabrina:
And I’m not even doing that.
I’m just living.
And I just think I’m trying to create good content by having great conversations with real people, but I don’t need to show all the bits I’m doing day-to-day.
In fact, my live yesterday, I came to my Miami apartment and I was like, “I’m in an apartment.”
I’m going to save money by going to the local store to get some food for dinner instead of actually buying dinner.
So, I was like, okay.
Yeah.
But I bought bacon, eggs, some milk, some juice, and some bread.
Carla Berkowitz:
Welcome to America.
It was $150,000.
I mean, $89.
Sabrina:
Well…
Carla Berkowitz:
The cheaper things are more expensive now.
Welcome to America.
Sabrina:
On Earth.
I was like, that was my breakfast basically.
Carla Berkowitz:
It used to be that Whole Foods was like…
You know, if you had more money than other people, you would shop there.
Now I think it’s cheaper than just going to a regular store.
People…
I don’t know what’s going on here, but whatever it is.
Sabrina:
I almost wanted to put it back and be like, I’m not having eggs and bacon.
But I was like, that teaches me for trying to be sensible and save money.
I should have just eaten in the restaurant and it’s all cool.
So, I’ve had a bit of a shock, but I’m here and I’m excited to interview really cool people like yourself today.
Carla Berkowitz:
And I’m not so cool because I’m today.
Sabrina:
Oh, thank you.
Come on.
Okay, I may be cool.
I’ll be cool.
But, you know, for the last…
Carla Berkowitz:
Because the Miami Film Festival, we were so blessed to have gotten into the Miami Film Festival, which is the only film festival that I thought this film belonged in because of the Latina angle.
And this is such a beautiful festival.
Tier one, very Latino-leaning.
Sabrina:
Which I love.
Carla Berkowitz:
Obviously because I’m from Venezuela.
I’m so honored.
You know, I thank the programmers and Lauren Cohen and Tom Powers.
And I also want to thank James Woolley, who is a very good friend of mine and saw the value.
They all saw the value in the documentary and how the chess life lessons are so real.
Even if you don’t play chess or realize that you are doing chess life lessons if you do play chess.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
You know, they are so real.
It’s like physics.
You don’t know it’s happening, but yet it’s happening.
Sabrina:
So I feel like for those people who don’t really know you, how would you describe what you do?
Because I feel like we’ve been talking about the film and obviously the film, I know who you are.
I love what you do.
I’m so excited to be part of this documentary.
But some people are watching this thinking, wait, what documentary?
Who is this Carla?
Carla Berkowitz:
Okay.
My name is Carla Berkowitz.
Obviously, you know that.
I was born in Venezuela.
I moved here when I was about 11.
Didn’t speak English.

Carla Berkowitz:
It was a rough kind of pawn to queen conversion.
That has been my chess life lesson up to today and it will be, I think, until the day I die.
Because I think that, and for those people who don’t know, the pawn has really no numerical value on the board, and the queen has the most value.
And if you are able, as you know, to get your pawn with your head down, if you translate it to real life, you put your head down, you just work and get to where you want to go.
Hopefully, when you’re doing it on the chessboard, moving that pawn so that people don’t realize that you’re doing it, and you just kind of just do it, do it.
And then you get to choose when you promote, what piece you want to be, whether it’s queen, depending on whether you’re going to mate with a knight or a bishop or whatever.
But let’s say you choose the queen, which I always do.
I feel like that is an encapsulation of my life.
Like I was a late bloomer and I feel like I was a pawn for most of my life.
And then suddenly it just, you know, I became what I wanted to become, but late, like 50.
Sabrina:
But I think that it’s not a sudden thing.
Because obviously, you know, my whole thing is about relating chess to life and I love this analogy.
But when a pawn becomes a queen, it’s not a sudden thing.
It’s not luck.
It’s really bloody hard work because a tiny little pawn, when you’ve got a whole board of enemies trying to shoot you down, and you can only go forwards as well.
You can’t go backwards.
You’re restricted with your movement.
If you’re able to get to that end of the board safely, no wonder you get rewarded for being whoever you want to become because that is such an amazing feat to have.
And I also really like it because a pawn can never do that by itself.
It can never just walk all the way to the end of the board by itself.
It needs a team supporting them in different ways, even sacrificing itself.
And the pieces that are worth more than the pawn in life see the potential and that’s gone.
And in life, you’ve got pieces, meaning the people that are not worth more than you, but worth, you know, not worth sacrificing, but yet they do sacrifice.

Carla Berkowitz:
So, in my case, for example, if you’re going to ask, like, how do you do that?
How do you relate that to you?
So when I, you know, when I got here, into the United States, I didn’t speak English and I moved to Miami.
And I was, you know…
I mean, I’m older now, so I shouldn’t really dwell on the fact that I was bullied, you know, every day after school until high school.
It definitely took a toll.
But on the other hand, if you look at it the way I look at it in order to save my sanity, right, is that I thank the bullies every single day.
Sabrina:
Built you into…
Carla Berkowitz:
To me, every bully was a piece in a magic carpet.
It was like the magic carpet was built like a quilt for me, and every quilt was a bully.
And when the magic carpet was finished, and it doesn’t ever actually finish, it keeps getting bigger and bigger, you know, because the bullies don’t stop, that carpet literally took me to where I wanted to go after it was full of enough bullies that it carried me to where I wanted to go.
If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re going to think I’m insane, but honestly, that’s the only way to say I’m not crying anymore.
I’m not going to let it affect me that way anymore.
I’m going to use it to my advantage.
Not to hurt the people that hurt me, but just to show myself that maybe that was the fuel I needed.
They say that immigrants have to work harder to get to where they want to go than people that are born in the place that they are.
And it is so true.
Sabrina:
Yeah, of course.
Prove yourself, work harder, language barrier, you know, this and that.
Carla Berkowitz:
And by the way, I have to add that when I moved here, I went to a school that had no Latins.
I was like the only Latin girl for a while and then, you know, whatever.
But it was hard.
So chess to me is very…
I use it as medicine in a way, you know, or psychiatry in a way.
Many, many different ways.
Sabrina:
I feel like what you said about the immigrant thing is so true.
And it gets passed down too because pretty much every person I know who are the most successful people I know, if I were to put all the most successful people I know in this room, they’d all be sons and daughters of immigrants.
And that’s not a coincidence.
And not just sons and daughters, or direct immigrants, but that’s what I mean.
Anyone who’s either immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants.
I’m saying it passes down and it’s not a coincidence.
It’s because…
Carla Berkowitz:
Completely.
There’s no, first of all, there is no coincidence.
Sabrina:
If you’re starting on a back foot, then you have to find all those skills of resilience and determination and grit and hard work.
And like you said, a lot of the times you have to be so much better than everyone else to prove yourself.
Like you can’t just show up and be the best.
You have to be better than the best.
Carla Berkowitz:
And even look at it.
It’s different now.
Immigrants are here everywhere and they raise each other up.
But at the time, no one raised me up.
Not even the teachers.
And there was no bullying claim then.
Like you couldn’t go to your teacher and say, “They’re beating me up after school.”
No, it wasn’t a thing.
Couldn’t tell my parents.
It just wasn’t.
It was something that you kept to yourself.
And these girls were so powerful in the school.
The mean girls, the pretty girls, the this girls, the that girls.
And apart from that, I just have to add that I’m a first-generation…
My father was a Holocaust survivor.
So, it wasn’t my grandparents.
It actually came down to my parents.
So, apart from that, being an immigrant and a child of a Holocaust survivor, you know, it made things interesting.
When my father died, the eulogy was “Magic Carpet Ride” from Steppenwolf because, you know, “little girl, let me take you on a magic carpet ride.”
And that’s why I feel like I’m good today because of all of the efforts that I didn’t realize I was putting out there and that chess, the chess lessons, supported me.

Sabrina:
Tell me how you got into film then because I feel like, you know, that’s obviously awesome.
Carla Berkowitz:
Yeah.
So, I was a Political Science and Judaic Studies major.
I was in London and it was called Richmond College, and I lived in Kensington.
It was beautiful.
And then I studied in Venezuela for a few years, and I graduated here at the University of Miami with a degree in Political Science and Judaic Studies.
And when I graduated, what was I going to do other than

work for the Anti-Defamation League in New York and be a spy for 11 years.
Sabrina:
Wow.
Carla Berkowitz:
[laughter]
I caught Nazis for 11 years.
I was a spy for…
Sabrina:
Wait, what?
Hang on a minute.
I didn’t know this.
Carla Berkowitz:
No one knows this.
Now everyone’s going to know this.
So, a bit of a breakthrough on this podcast.
Sabrina:
What?
What?
Carla Berkowitz:
So, I had the pleasure of having two incredible visiting professors when I was at the University of Miami.
One was Elie Wiesel and one was Simon Wiesenthal.
And when they finished their visiting professorship, I guess for lack of a better word, I asked them, “Now what do I do?”
Like, “I want to avenge my family.”
And they’re like, “Well, don’t do it in Europe because it’s dangerous, but go to New York, work for the Anti-Defamation League, and help them.”
And so not even my family knew what I was doing.
They just thought I went to work there, but they didn’t know.
So I did that for about 11 years and can’t go into it further.
Although on CNN they have my counterpart, what was, you know, what I did.
They have them on as a talking head.
So really, I missed my time.
Sabrina:
Oh, yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
No, but I did that for 11 years.
And then one day I was watching a movie.
I’m a martial artist.
I have a black belt in kung fu.
And at the time I was not a black belt.
I was just starting.
And I saw a film called Bloodsport and the actor was Jeff Speakman.
He’s B-list, you know, B-list martial arts movies, but this was great.
This one was really great.
And he did, this will come into film, I promise.
Sabrina:
This is fascinating.
Carla Berkowitz:
And so he did a kata, which is a form in kung fu, to the song “I’ve Got the Power” by C+C Music Factory.
He did it to the music and my brain exploded.
This was after the 11 years doing that.
And I said, “What did I just see?”
So, I’m not sure exactly how one thing led to another because I wasn’t a film student, even though when I was younger I was a theater nerd and I was a director and a choreographer.
And I did that since I was like 5 years old.

Carla Berkowitz:
But I realized after I saw that little five-minute take on his film that I wanted to do a fitness video.
Karate aerobics.
And that gave me the idea.
It was almost like divine, like an arrow, because what did I know?
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
Jane Fonda was the big thing then.
All the fitness videos were big.
So, to make a long story short, I went from that to producing 15 fitness videos and selling them internationally.
Sabrina:
Wow.
Carla Berkowitz:
One of them being with Black Entertainment Television.
I mean, it was crazy.
Patra was in it.
Shabba Ranks was in it.
It was crazy.
Crazy.
And people say to me, “Well, how did you get from that to movies? It has nothing to do with it.”
I’m like, “You have no idea what you’re saying.”
They were hour-and-a-half videos.
At the time, you could consider them indies because there’s no difference.
You have to get an idea.
Well, let me go back.
Get an idea.
You have to write the script.
You have to find the people.
You have to cast it.
You have to get the money.
You have to film it, edit it, do everything that you have to do.
And then the last thing is sell it.
So, it’s a film.
It just happens to be people dancing and they’re working out in the film.
And at the time, in the ’90s, it was the thing to do.
Starting in the late ’80s, ’91, ’92.
My last one was in 2005.
Sabrina:
Wow.
Carla Berkowitz:
And I stopped only because now everything was free.
So I went from VHS cassette tape to CD to then digital.
So, all of the videos were voted best video.
Every media has its Grammy or Oscar situation.
So mine, I was lucky enough to be like best fitness video of the year for this one, for that one.
Remember Tae Bo?
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
Okay.
He sold like a hundred million units, which was ridiculous and incredible.
So, I did, not a copy, but I did my own version called Kai Bo.
And I got an A, he got a C, Billy Blanks, because mine was the right beats per minute and his was a little too fast and you could get hurt.
Whatever.
I didn’t sell 100 million units like he did, but still, that taught me pretty much everything that I needed to know without realizing it.
So, when I did my first film, I was like, “How is it that I know exactly what to do?”
It was just amplified.
And I tell people what I did for 15 videos was exactly the same, just a lot less zeros.
That’s it.
Less zeros, same thing.
So, when I added the zeros, it got important.
Sabrina:
Yeah, it became important.
Do you know what it reminds me of?
It reminds me of the film The Substance.
Have you seen the film?
Carla Berkowitz:
I love that film.
Sabrina:
I was going to say, what do you think of it?
Carla Berkowitz:
I thought it was a great concept.
Great acting.
Great film.
Sabrina:
But yeah, it reminds me of that because obviously that was her workout videos and that she was the star.
Carla Berkowitz:
I saw that.
I was like, she was the star and that’s the thing.
I was not in it.
Sabrina:
Oh, sorry.
Let me…
I know you weren’t.
I’m saying that’s what it makes me think of when I’m thinking of what you did.
It makes me feel like you were making The Substance.
Carla Berkowitz:
Let me tell you.
At the time, those little mini movies, they weren’t mini.
They were an hour and a half long.
Indie videos were…
There was no internet.
There was no way to sell it.
There was no social media.
The only way to sell these videos and pay the investor back, which is very important to me and still is, is you would have to get a distributor that would have the money to buy ads in magazines.
So, my videos were in every fitness magazine.
Every Self, Fitness, Shape, Oprah, this, that.
And, you know, it was very difficult to pay people back.
The best story, and it could happen in film too, but the best story that I have of my fitness videos was the last one that I did with Black Entertainment Television, with BET.
It was called Jamaica Me Sweat.
Sabrina:
Yeah, I love it.
Carla Berkowitz:
And the reason I did that is because BET had a show called Caribbean Rhythms.
So, we merged it together and it was like Caribbean Rhythms Presents Jamaica Me Sweat.
Okay?
So, it was great.
It was very successful.
And then O.J. Simpson happened.
And O.J. Simpson gave one interview to BET with Tavis Smiley.
And all of that was 1995, right when all that stuff was going on.
All of the advertisers for BET pulled out.
So, my BET contact called me and said, “Carla, we don’t have any commercials.”
And I had done a 30, 60, and a 90-second commercial, which I voiced over because, of course, I was free.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
And I was the only commercial.
They asked me if I wanted…
I’m like, “Put my commercial on.”
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
So, I was the only commercial.
So, I called the AT&T call center.
That was how you got sales at the time.
There was no internet.
There wasn’t even an Amazon.
So, they didn’t believe me that there was going to be that many views.
And so we lost like 90% of the calls.
It was crazy.
But we could have recouped that night and paid back the investor.
We did manage to get some of the sales back and we did manage to pay back the investor.
But that was my O.J.
So O.J. Simpson and I have a crazy connection.
Sabrina:
That’s nuts.
Oh my God.
Nuts.
It’s so funny how people intertwine with your lives and you don’t even realize the effect.
Carla Berkowitz:
And in my first fitness videos, there were five.
You could buy one or you could buy all five.
It was called The Perfect Balance Workout.
It was karate aerobics, ballet aerobics, salsa aerobics, yoga aerobics, and then all five of them.
So, at the cast party, they surprised me with Magic Johnson.
Sabrina:
Oh my God.
Oh my God is right.
No way.
Carla Berkowitz:
I can send you the picture.
Sabrina:
Yeah, that’s so cool.
Carla Berkowitz:
So, a lot of cool things.
So, for anybody that says making fitness videos, that’s not film school, that’s not making films, I’m like, “Okay, you try one.”
And show what camera goes to the feet, what camera goes to the arm, what camera goes…
You know.
But everyone starts somewhere.
Sabrina:
And that’s the thing.
If you look at every superstar there is now who’s the elite of what they do, they started at a smaller version of what they do.
Carla Berkowitz:
You have no idea how many people I work with listen to my story and say to themselves and to me, “That is not preparation for film.”
Sabrina:
Well, I beg to differ because look where you are now.
[laughter]
But they are just jealous if they say that.
Like, I think everyone has an origin story.
Carla Berkowitz:
They are jealous.
And I would like to trade with them one day.
Like, you make a fitness video like I did and get voted the best of the year.
So, that is my foray into film.
So then what happened was, in the middle of it all, in 1997 or 1998, I saw…
The Miami Herald was still in print.
And on Sundays they had a print magazine, kind of like the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

And on the cover, which I’ll send you as well, was the cover of Critical Thinking.
The story with Ito, if anybody saw the film, Ito, the one who was played by George Lendeborg Jr., who disappeared in the middle of the film.
He had dreadlocks and he was holding a king.
And I read the title of the article and it said, “Kings with a Z in the Hood.”
And I had a quantum shift.
Like Boys n the Hood, but it was Kings in the Hood.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
A quantum shift in my brain.
And I’m like, “Wait a second.”
This is Miami and there’s genius.
Genius with a capital G.
Like, you know, a noun, not like “a genius.”
I said, “Where is this genius coming from?”
It is not coming from the northeastern prep schools, which I’ve nothing against because two of my kids went to those.
But it’s coming from right in my backyard and I have to tell the story.
So, that was a Sunday.
And so that night, I guarantee you that 99.999% of the people in Miami, if not 99.9999%, threw out their paper and I made a film.
But it took 20 years.
Sabrina:
That’s what I was going to say because you said that was ’98, right?
And that didn’t come out till…
Carla Berkowitz:
Yeah.
Sabrina:
2020.
But it started filming in 2018.
So, it was 20 years.
How?
I mean, I know that things take a long time.
And this was unusual.
But this is why people give up because they don’t see the fruits of their labor so quickly.
Carla Berkowitz:
Such a good thing.
So, I believe that you have to be a bit delusional to be a filmmaker.
Sabrina:
I believe you have to be delusional to be good at anything.
I think you have to be delusional to be good at life.
Carla Berkowitz:
Yeah, exactly.
But in film, you have to be a little bit delusional to think that not only is your project better than anybody else’s, or better than something that you’ve done before, but you have to be a little bit delusional to see the end of the project and hold on so tight.
And the differential, I think, between filmmakers that make it and don’t, is not the delusional part, although I think that’s part of it.
It’s the fact that how much do you hold on before you move on?
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
I don’t have that barometer.

For me, I don’t let go.
I hold on until it happens.
Because then I will have wasted their time and my time.
And for me, in Critical Thinking, for example, which we’ll talk about now, this movie in particular, these boys were 15 when I met them.
They didn’t speak English.
Most of them had just gotten here from Cuba.
And I remember when I first met them after I saw the article and the coach.
I looked at them and their puppy eyes, you know, they were looking up at me.
And I said in Spanish, “Just trust me. Just trust me.”
And I got their life rights.
And for 20 years they waited.
And, you know, people were like, “Well, you’re Latin. You marinate everything.”
I do marinate my food for a long time.
[laughter]
This took its time.
And people ask me why.
And I think it was because…
I could say it was the wrong scriptwriter or it wasn’t the right time or this or that.
And by the way, I just want to add in there that it wasn’t funds because the funds, believe it or not, were always there.
Which is so different than 100% of the people, unless you are a billionaire financing your own films.
The money was always there for me.
It was a matter of timing.
And my feeling is that we were waiting for John Leguizamo to be available.
Without knowing it, I went to see Latin History for Morons on Broadway where he played a teacher.
It’s a great show.
It’s on Netflix now if anybody wants to catch it.
And when I saw it, I realized this man needs to do this movie.
And what I didn’t realize is that he had already been asked to do the movie.
Sabrina:
Oh.
Carla Berkowitz:
By someone else who was trying to take the movie away from me.
Sabrina:
No.
Even though you owned the life rights and all that stuff?
Carla Berkowitz:
Yeah.
People are people.
I can’t stand people, honestly.
People are…
This is the No Bullsh*t podcast.
I’m telling you that there was a lot of bullsh*t.
Thank God I had a lot of very strong partners.
Like really strong partners in this city.
Which, you know, it’s very easy to look good when you have an angel on your shoulder.
Very easy.
So everybody wants to say, “Oh, you were so good and you were so strong and you pushed and look what you accomplished.”
I had someone here helping me that no one saw but me.
So, I’m not going to…
I can’t mention his name.
He passed away, but he was my partner for 30 years in the film.
But yeah, it’s easy to look good when you have an angel on your shoulder.
But anyway, John came around.
Everything was great.
John wasn’t the one trying to take it, obviously.
It was some other people.
But anyway, everybody got together.
And in 2018, when we finally realized that this is it, this is what we’re waiting 20 years for, it went fast.
And then it went even faster in post-production.
And then right away we sent it out to South by Southwest and got in, which was the one festival I thought this movie belonged in because it’s a little more brainiac.
You know, it’s got not just films, it’s got tech and music and this and that.
And it’s also Latin-leaning.
It’s close to Mexico.
It has a lot of…
And we were ecstatic.
I mean, there were bidding wars and this and that.
Whatever.
And then six days before the festival, COVID happened.
So the festival closed.
And so talk about being a COVID movie.
Everyone’s like, “Oh, we were a COVID movie.”
I’m like, “No, no.
You don’t understand.
I was a March 2020 COVID movie.”
And so what would have been the rollout of the Concorde would go like this, you know.
It took a different and slower trajectory.
But thank God because it didn’t fizzle out right away.
And even five years later, the film is now, believe it or not, in every prison in America.
It has its own curriculum.
Sabrina:
Wow.
Carla Berkowitz:
Every inmate who takes the course, they’re called learners.
So far, it’s only been up like two months and there’s like 700,000 hours of learners learning the film Critical Thinking and having to take a curriculum.
And so the highest and best use of the film, which most investors, producers, executive producers, studios, whatever, think is eyes on the screen, money in their pockets.
To me, the highest and best use is that it became a movement and changed the world, penetrated the culture, and people will never forget the film.
And it just doesn’t die.
It just keeps going.

So, from there, I met you in a very strange, wonderful way.
The film comes out in 2020 and you’re here because you are in my second chess feature documentary.
It’s a film because it’s as long as a film and it’s filmed like a film, even though it’s a documentary.
And we have such amazing…
The director has won Peabodies and Emmys.
Zach Zamboni, you know, he was with Parts Unknown for 20 years and whatever.
It was such an amazing, amazing crew.
But that came from Critical Thinking.
And that’s why, you know, it’s not a coincidence.
Chess doesn’t have coincidences in it.
Chess has brainiac power in it and wonderfully devious, in a good way, calculating.
So what happened is, okay, it didn’t get into South by Southwest, but it did get into major international and national film festivals.
They just couldn’t be shown on the screen.
So it was really crazy and very sad.
However, Bianca saw the film and met me on a podcast, but I do not remember her because it was a very big US women’s chess podcast.
Sabrina:
Okay.
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
And John was on the podcast with me.
And she then, at 15, reached out to me on a private message on LinkedIn.
And how was she going to know that I was going to answer her?
I had just done this big movie and she’s 15.
But there was something about the way that she asked me.
And by now everybody knows that Keanu Reeves was my producing partner, but I wasn’t allowed to say anything for all these years.
And she never said a word to me either about that.
She said, “Would you executive produce…
I have an idea to do a chess documentary about female chess heroes.
My whole life I’ve learned about Bobby Fischer, Kasparov, and all the others, but we never really…”
So I said, “A second chess movie? I’m in.”
So, what I loved about this one and what we crafted it to be after we wrote it and crafted it was that we realized that every girl that was in this documentary, and unfortunately some that couldn’t do it because some were having a baby, the lessons that chess had for them took them from, for example, the poorest of the poor and the most horrific childhoods to then running a major corporation.
I can give you Rusa, for example, which everybody will see in the film.
I mean, she was in the country of Georgia.
She escaped at 8 years old, or a little bit older.
She had a terrible childhood there.
But she was a chess prodigy.
And she escaped and got to the United States and now she works for BlackRock.
I mean, stuff like that.
And it’s not so much that these girls, including you, ended up being successful financially.
It was just the lessons that helped them get away from their situations and got them, including yourself, to the point in life where you could choose what you wanted to do in life.
And I believe that even if you or the other girls don’t realize it, it’s not in the front of your minds.
It’s deep inside your DNA by this point.
That’s just how you act.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
All of you.
That’s how you have been trained, like an athlete, like a gymnast.
It’s second nature.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
So that’s what happened.
So, I got this documentary and it took a while, you know, a while to do because everything does.
And here we are.
It was hard, but here we are.
And I’m just very excited because tomorrow night it’s being premiered.
World premiere.
So, yeah.
Sabrina:
Since we’ve been talking obviously about chess and life lessons and you’ve taken 20 years to create an amazing movie, I would love to talk about how you were able to stay so resilient for so long and determined to do it.
Because I think what I see with entrepreneurs these days is that they see something exciting.
They say they want to do something, but they kind of half-ass it.
You know, with the way that things are, we said it earlier.
People want instant results.
They want speed.
They see things on social media.
Carla Berkowitz:
Shiny object syndrome.
Sabrina:
Exactly.
It is completely shiny object syndrome.
Everyone’s got it because they see on social media all this stuff happening and they do it for a bit.
“Oh, it’s not working.”
And then give up and move on to the next thing.
Carla Berkowitz:
That is not satisfying to me.
Sabrina:
No, it’s not.
And I think that old-school entrepreneurs don’t have that.
And I really relate to that.
I will stick to something.
I’m still here.
I’ve still been doing my agency for the last 15 years despite other people going up and down.
I’ve pivoted a little bit.
I’ve adapted with the times and I’m still going.
And I’m doing other things on top of it, but I’m still here running my same business for the last 15 years.
Whereas people don’t even last 15 months.
They’ve given up.
They change.
They go, “It didn’t work.”
You didn’t give it time for it to work.
You didn’t let it percolate or marinate.
Carla Berkowitz:
Exactly.
Marinate.
Exactly.
But you spent 20 years.
Now you’ve got two super successful films and so many more in the works.
Exactly.
And I know why I kept at it.
I mean, when you deal with people, when you’re telling a true story about people that have families and come from not the best circumstances, they had to leave Cuba on a lottery or on a raft or however they got here, whatever.
There are many times in this story in particular…
You have to give respect to people that don’t realize they even deserve the respect.
And the respect I gave them was I promised them that I would do this.
How can you not do it?
I mean, what is it about someone that would just say, “I’m sorry.
It’s just took too long.
It’s not interesting to me anymore.”
Whatever.
That would never have come to my mind.
It would have killed my soul and I wouldn’t have been able to be me.
These boys and this coach did extraordinary things for 10 years.
And I promised them.
How can you not?
So that fueled me and it got into me to the point where it’s not just 20 years.
It’s 28 years now.
And why is that?
Maybe a little longer because I’m either doing a part two or a TV series.
I’m still working with them.
I’m still doing chess.
So, it’s actually got into my veins.
They got into me.
People are like, “Oh, you changed their lives.
You made them immortal.
There’s a movie about them.”
I’m like, “I don’t think you get it.”
They changed my life completely.
So, I will always love them.
Some of them are coming tomorrow night.
Don’t make me cry.
And I saw them grow up.
And they deserve this respect that they never thought anybody would ever give them.
And to me, they are just…
Yeah.
So that’s why I didn’t give up.
Sabrina:
How did you get the big names to come be part of it?
Because obviously, like you said, John was part of it.
And I can’t help but call him Omar because I love The Wire.
[laughter]
And it’s very sad because he died right after.
So tell me about that.
Michael K. Williams was a gift.
Carla Berkowitz:
Yeah.
A gift from God, I think, in that movie.
A gift from God.
I can tell you that when he was in a room, he sucked up the oxygen so much people had to get out.
I remember one scene where he yelled at his son.
It was such a yell.
We had to do a take two because there were so many people behind the camera.
We were like…
It was just so…
We had to vacate.
He was really an exceptional artist in the sense that he just lived the character.
But every character he played was so mean and so awful.
And yet that was the opposite.
I remember he said to me, “Madam EP,” which was so lovely.
And he didn’t really mean it, but he did.
He was such a gentleman.
And he put his arm out and I put my arm on it and we were walking.
Everybody on set was like, “What is happening?
What is he saying to her?”
And he said, “I would like to donate to this community.
This is my community.”
Yeah, he was very much not the characters he played.
Very special.
I got very friendly with his entourage.
And when he died, it was very personal.
I didn’t know him long, obviously.
But when you’re on a film set and you’re together for like 18 hours a day or whatever, for days and days and days, you become fast friends.
Sometimes the friendship lasts.
Sabrina:
Yeah, of course.
Obviously, it didn’t because he passed away, but it was sad.
Carla Berkowitz:
But yes, he was a gift.
And so was Rachel Bay Jones, who had won the Tony for playing the mother in Dear Evan Hansen.
An interesting story is that since I was a theater nerd, as I told you, I had seen her in the remake of Hair.
Sabrina:
Oh, wow.
Carla Berkowitz:
And the remake of Pippin years and years before.
You would have given me a million dollars and I would never have thought that that woman that I idolized, that gave me an autograph, was going to be the star of my film.
And we became good friends too.
This film had a lot of things like that.
And if you talk to any of the crew here in Miami, everybody says that it was a bubble set.
Like it would never happen again.
It hadn’t happened since and it will never happen again.
I don’t know.
It was just very special.
And I think it had to do with the people.
We were talking about these boys.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
I remember you telling me a story, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you had to change the first scene of that movie depending on where you aired it.
Is that correct?

Carla Berkowitz:
Which one?
Which scene?
Sabrina:
You were telling me that the very first scene in the movie, you changed it because certain countries didn’t relate.
Carla Berkowitz:
Oh, Sabrina.
Yes.
Sabrina:
I remember because the story shocked me and I need you to tell it because I was shocked when you told me this.
Do you want me to tell?
Carla Berkowitz:
Yeah.
Tell it because I honestly, when you told me this, I was…
Thank you for reminding me.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
So, when we sold…
The first scene of the film is Michael K. with his son, Cedric, who is Corwin Tuggles, excuse me, who’s an amazing, amazing actor.
When we sold it internationally, and I mean, I’m not telling on anyone.
This is just what happened.
If you see the film in another country, it’s not the same first scene.
They asked us to cut out the first scene because it was two African-Americans.
When that happened, when we were asked to do that, I wasn’t actually part of that team, the international team.
I heard about it after.
Of course, if I would have known before, I would have said no and moved on to a different distributor.
But because, in my opinion, sometimes emotional ROI is sometimes more important than financial ROI.
Sometimes investors want to leave a legacy, like I said on LinkedIn a couple of days ago.
And I just don’t think that this investor would have allowed that to happen if we would have known.
But yes, we had to change the movie because the first scene was too…
Sabrina:
To respond to having…
And you know what?
This is the first time I’ve said this to anyone on camera.
Carla Berkowitz:
So, thank you for bringing this up because it needed to be said.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
When you told me, I was shocked to the core that this is…
But I shouldn’t be shocked because…
Carla Berkowitz:
Yes, you should.
I know exactly.
Say it out loud.
Sabrina:
I mean, it’s weird because I know how I’m treated on a daily basis.
I live in the UK.
Racism is so rife that it hurts so bad and I cannot even begin to put it into words how I feel every single day.
Carla Berkowitz:
And you don’t have to.
I’m white, but I was Latin.
And so the bullying that you feel, I felt too.
So I understand you.
But when I hear it…
Sabrina:
But saying it out loud now, five years, six years later, brought it all back.
But it just shows you that being Black is still seen as a negative in certain places.
It is, but it’s still seen as a disadvantage.
And the fact that they would consciously say that it would put people off immediately, it blows my mind.
Carla Berkowitz:
And you know what?
This was such a great scene.
If it would have been two white people or Latino people, who knows?
Even Latino people, who knows?
You know, the scene, in my opinion, they lost out.
They didn’t see one of the better scenes that set up the whole film.
So, yes.
Thank you for reminding me.
Sabrina:
Oh my gosh.
Anything else that you have to…
[laughter]
That I said to you that…
There’s a lot.
I feel like we could record forever.
And I wish we could because you’re so fascinating, honestly, what you’ve done.
And I also just want to thank you for bringing chess to the masses, but portraying it in a beautiful light, in an artistic light.
Everyone talks about The Queen’s Gambit because obviously that made a big impact.
[laughter]
I know, but honestly, I sat down and I watched your movie with my then fiancé and my parents.
And for me, my parents are not movie people.
I don’t sit down and watch movies usually, but I told them I really wanted them to watch this movie.
And they said it was one of the best movies they’ve ever watched because it was so accurately portrayed for them as chess parents.
For them as chess parents of a little Black girl in England growing up and going to a chess tournament, taking their daughter to a chess tournament, and she’s beating people and they were like, “Well, are you cheating?”
Or like, you know, “What are you doing?”
And, you know, my dad wasn’t allowed in the room.
Sometimes I’ll be an eight-year-old little girl.
Everyone else has got their parents.
My dad wasn’t allowed in the room.
Carla Berkowitz:
Do you remember in the scene where John Leguizamo takes his team to the tournament and the judge says, “This is a chess game.”
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Exactly.
That was the one that they were like, “Oh my God.”
And for them, it actually…
Carla Berkowitz:
And then he says, “And when you lose.”
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it’s stuff like that.
It brought real emotions to them.
And I loved that movie a lot.
Carla Berkowitz:
You answered your own question as to why I didn’t let this go.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
And I thank you for that, honestly.
And now the privilege of obviously being in Mad Woman’s Game and seeing what…
I’m so excited to see it all come together tomorrow in the premiere because I’ve only been in a tiny bit of it and I know what that bit is.
But seeing the whole thing come together and the beauty of Bianca’s life and how chess has really shaped everything, and again, you guys willing to tell that story and bring it to public, is huge for chess.
Carla Berkowitz:
But I want to just say one thing and then we can end, if you want.
But you were the only one that didn’t play a game.
I’m not going to tell anybody else because let everybody else speak for themselves.
These wonderful girls that were in this documentary, but what you did, I still use today.
The Réti endgame.
You did not bring a game.
You did not play a game.
You actually did some research or thought about it, about what makes a person decide something, or think it through better, or look at it in a different way.
And the Réti endgame, people study it.
Universities study it.
And the fact, the diagonal situation, I use it today now in my chess games and I use it in business.
Yeah, I checkmate people with the Réti endgame.
And I feel bad because I know how to do it.
But sometimes I don’t feel bad because everyone in a business meeting should prepare themselves.
And if I have a little bit of what you taught me, and that was 20-something years later and I’m still learning, but that was a very powerful scene in the film.
And I just want you to know it went beyond just a scene.
It really touched a lot of people there.
Sabrina:
Oh, well, thank you so much because that means so much to me because I love the game of chess.
I love so many things about it.
Obviously, I stopped playing for sad reasons, which you know about, which is not for this time to talk about.
But I obviously love the game.
I love teaching it, which that’s very, very clear.
And something that I’m really passionate about is going into organizations now.
I even go into corporates and I try to teach critical thinking.
This is what I do.
And I teach critical thinking to business and I show that chess is a fantastic tool for business and strategy.
And it’s not like people just see pieces and moves.
It’s way more than that.
There is so much there.
Carla Berkowitz:
And it’s retreat.
People ask me, “So what do you mean that you use chess?”
So I can tell you how I use it.
Like E4, if I’m starting.
And I wait to see what they do and then I move.
And if they retreat, then I know what to do.
If I need to retreat, I do.
I know what to do.
That’s how I use it.
Like I literally play in my head.
Sabrina:
Yeah.
Carla Berkowitz:
Sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes it does.
But literally, like what you’re saying, I use it move by move.
If it were on a chessboard and I have to retreat and not lose that piece, then I have to retreat and then wait for a better sentence to stay in a…
Sabrina:
Yeah.
I think chess is a really powerful game.
I think it’s got so much potential with what we can achieve with life.
And I think that with Mad Woman’s Game coming out, I know that that’s going to have an impact.
I think Critical Thinking is a wonderful movie and that has an impact.
And obviously all the more that you’re going to do and the TV shows that you’re going to do.
I’m so excited to see what happens.
Carla Berkowitz:
Yeah.
Sabrina:
So watch this space.
I would love for…
I’m going to put some links in the show notes for the podcast so that people can watch stuff and contact you.
And how would people contact you if they wanted to get in touch?
Carla Berkowitz:
On Instagram, I am My Perfectly Balanced World, which is completely not perfectly balanced, but I figured if I say it enough, maybe I’ll learn it.
Or you can go on Critical Thinking Movie and send me a direct message.
Or LinkedIn, Carla Berkowitz.
Either way, I’m very accessible.
So access me.
[laughter]
Sabrina:
It’s been so wonderful.
I honestly wish I could speak to you forever.
But thank you so much today.
Carla Berkowitz:
And thank you so much for agreeing to be in the documentary.
And I can’t wait.
I cannot wait for you to see yourself and what you’ve done and for the world to see a different side of you.
Another side of you.
How about that?
Sabrina:
Yeah.
I’m excited, but also incredibly nervous, but it’s going to be fun.
Carla Berkowitz:
You’re good.
Trust me.
Sabrina:
Well, thank you so much for today.
Carla Berkowitz:
Thank you.
My pleasure.
Yay.
Sabrina:
Yay.