Yixuan shared about watching survivor stories as a survivor themself, Re-Present Media’s work to discuss ethical filmmaking practices for working with survivors in our Centering Survivor Stories series, and the importance of providing solace and solidarity to survivors through stories created with thoughtful and intentional practices.
We are working with Yixuan to create the documentation for our Centering Survivor Stories series, which will cover the high-level themes and lessons learned from the sessions so that it can be circulated widely beyond the immediate workshop participants, while also protecting the privacy of participating individuals and the details of their films.
Congratulations to Re-Take Oakland filmmaker, Pallavi Somusetty, for winning the $40,000 DocPitch 2023 Jury Award for her film, Coach Emily. Presented by DocLands Documentary Film Festival, DocPitch is an invitation for North American based filmmakers to submit their unfinished feature-length documentary projects currently in early to late stages of production. A jury selected five filmmaking teams to present a verbal pitch and a three-to-five minute trailer.
Coach Emily is a feature documentary that follows Emily Taylor, an Oakland-based Black and queer rock climbing coach, as she battles systemic racism in her professional and personal life. Through her Brown Girls Climbing program, Emily trains young girls of color, including her own daughter, as they resist discrimination in the climbing world and work to define themselves in the outdoors.
Silent Beauty, directed by Jasmin Mara López, is screening at the Roxie in San Francisco on Sunday, April 16th at 1pm. The film will be followed by a Q&A with director Jasmin Mara López, moderated by Jennifer Crystal Chien. Following the screening, the Silent Beauty team will host a healing gathering open to survivors of childhood sexual abuse who identify as women.
When director Jasmin Mara López sees a photo of her niece with her grandfather, she is flooded by painful memories of her own childhood sexual abuse at his hands—and the following 24 years of her silence. In this cinematically striking and poetic documentary, López bravely films her story as a willful act to accept difficult truths while finding beauty in the process of healing. As she defies the cultural silence that pervades her family and confronts her abusive grandfather, who is a Baptist minister, a world of generational abuse unfolds, and she quickly discovers she is not alone. Through archival family footage and intimate moments with her family, López has created a film about confronting painful truths and the beauty one can feel when they reach the other side of grief.
Following the screening, the Silent Beauty team will host a healing gathering open to survivors of childhood sexual abuse who identify as women. If you are a CSA survivor who identifies as a woman and would like to participate, please fill out this form.
Re-Present Media director, Jennifer Crystal Chien, was recognized as an unsung hero of documentary filmmaking by Brown Girls Doc Mafia. Thank you to BGDM for spotlighting documentary women and femme leaders of color!
We are excited to announce our For Us, By Us Filmmaker Incubator cohort! Seven filmmakers telling personal stories from underrepresented Bay Area communities were selected to participate in our six month intensive. The cohort will participate in workshops, receive mentoring, and be given stipends to strategically use for their films.
Their six projects highlight intersections of race, class, and gender from across the Bay Area. We are thrilled to support these filmmakers’ stories for Bay Area communities by Bay Area filmmakers. With each film comes an opportunity to realistically represent those who have been underrepresented and provide insight into how we can better understand each other and ourselves.
Congratulations to Caroline Julia Cabading, Megan Martinez Goltz, Chad Santo Tomas, Mauro Sifuentes, Sé Sullivan, Erika Staud, and Priyanka Suryaneni. We look forward to supporting these filmmakers on their journeys!
We presented a Community Building session titled, Restorative Practices for BIPOC Creatives, for the European Film Market Toolbox Programme. The EFM Doc Toolbox Programme and EFM Fiction Toolbox Programme are part of the European Film Market’s Diversity & Inclusion initiatives. The programs empower filmmakers from marginalised groups and the Global South to gain market intelligence, business tools, and connections for effective navigation in the global film market.
Our session focused on principles and practices for BIPOC filmmakers and creatives working within environments rooted in white supremacist culture. The vision was to focus on working sustainably and effectively amid predictable challenges that arise. Themes of the session included shifting perspectives on approaching the work, handling challenging situations in new ways, and building community.
Filmmakers Collaborative SF and Re-Present Media are collaborating to present the For Us, By Us Filmmaker Incubator, a six month intensive to support a diverse cohort of six local documentary filmmakers who are telling personal stories from underrepresented communities in the Bay Area.
APPLICATION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 22, 2023 @ 11:59PM PST
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
For Us, By Us will support a diverse cohort of six local documentary filmmakers who are telling personal stories from underrepresented communities in the Bay Area. The filmmakers will participate in workshops, receive mentoring, and be given stipends to strategically use for their films. The mentoring will be focused on a group setting, with additional individual mentoring with program directors as needed. The six month program will run from March-August 2023.
Our goal is to nurture stories that expand our understanding of those who live in our Bay Area communities, especially those who are marginalized that will benefit from seeing their perspectives realistically represented, validating their lived experiences and providing insight into how we can better understand each other and ourselves.
Filmmakers Collaborative SF is a nonprofit media organization with a mission to catalyze positive change through the power of filmmaking. Re-Present Media is an organization dedicated to advocating for personal storytelling from underrepresented communities in documentary film and nonfiction media. The launch of the For Us, By Us Filmmaker Incubator marks an exciting next step in our work to support diverse storytellers and strengthen the Bay Area’s filmmaker ecosystem.
PROGRAM STRUCTURE
The six month program includes:
$1,750 stipend to be used in accordance with the filmmaker’s development plan that is created in the program.
Three months of workshops (twice a month) led by a diverse group of working filmmakers and industry professionals covering story development, creative approach, fundraising, distribution, and other elements of the filmmaking journey.
Three months of group mentoring sessions (twice a month) focused on the needs of the participants’ films, with additional individual mentoring with program directors as needed.
Work in progress screening at the end of the program.
ELIGIBILITY
To be eligible, applicants must:
Be an emerging to mid-career documentary filmmaker
Live or work in the Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, and Sonoma Counties)
Be working on a documentary project that centers a personal story within an underrepresented Bay Area community. The film can be a short or feature length documentary in pre-production with secured participants, production, or post-production.
Be available to participate in the program’s activities. See tentative schedule.
APPLICATION
Application deadline: February 22, 2023 at 11:59pm PST
Congratulations to Re-Take Oakland filmmaker, Jennifer Huang, who was selected for the DOC NYC x Video Consortium Storytelling Incubator for her film, The Long Rescue. This initiative provides first-time feature documentary filmmakers with hands-on creative consultation and professional guidance from established industry voices.
The Long Rescue follows Filipina teen sex trafficking survivors for six years where we learn of their dark pasts through brief flashbacks that reveal the cyclical nature of exploitation that haunts women and their children for generations.
Re-Present Media Director, Jennifer Crystal Chien, participated in the Mill Valley Film Festival 2022 Panel: The Power of Personal Documentary Films: The Distributors on October 13, 2022.
In early 2022, Re-Present Media issued an article, The Power of Personal Documentary Films, presenting data gathered from emerging BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) filmmakers working on personal documentary films. In particular, the article explored the impact of racism and white-supremacy culture on their work.
This session presented highlights of the survey project as it relates to the current distribution landscape, then dove into a deep conversation with distribution professionals. Themes included: the value of personal documentary films from diverse communities, how personal documentaries are currently distributed, the challenges of marketing such films, the missed opportunities to connect with audiences because of an unconscious bias against these films, and how strategies can shift among distributors for programming, acquiring, and marketing personal documentaries.
