In this interview from The Video Consortium, Story Power: Crafting Impact Campaigns with Care, director Jasmin Mara López, talks about her debut documentary Silent Beauty, and how she consciously centered her impact campaign around the voices of survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

“In terms of impact campaigns and really building care into your strategy, you really have to think big—as big as possible. But you need to take your time with this sort of thing because you could harm people on your way to achieving your goals.”
—Jasmín Mara López

We previously supported the Silent Beauty screening at the Roxie last year.

Watch: Silent Beauty on PBS

ALIVE IN BRONZE: Huey P. Newton, directed by Re-Take Oakland filmmaker A.K. Sandhu, will be screened in the VC x BGDM Shorts Showcase 2024 presented by the Video Consortium and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. They are hosting in-person screenings across NYC, LA, SF, and Atlanta, curated by VC x BGDM and featuring in person Q&As.

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VC x BGDM Shorts Showcase: Bay Area

Tuesday, July 9, 2024, 7pm
The New Parkway

In ALIVE IN BRONZE: Huey P. Newton, sculptor Dana King’s hands and activist Fredrika Newton’s memories come together to build a new monument that honors the Black Panther Party’s vital place in American history.

More info and tickets: https://browngirlsdocmafia.org/VC-x-BGDM-Shorts-Showcase-2024

Re-Take Oakland filmmaker, Pallavi Somusetty, will be a panelist for Storytelling Our Way: Filmmakers of Color Forge Their Path. This panel is part of the IDA Logan Elevate Public Program, a series of panels where IDA Logan Elevate 2023 filmmaking fellows open a conversation about cultural exchange within the film industry.

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Storytelling Our Way: Filmmakers of Color Forge Their Path

Tuesday, July 2, 2024, 9 am PST

How can we be supported to tell stories outside of the dominant gaze, if most formative spaces for international artists are trying to make a film “accessible” to a mass audience? How can we create new Global South and diaspora forms for our specific audiences, particularly during a time when resources are scarce and the sustainability of our work is threatened? 

Join moderator Monika Navarro, Senior Director of Artists Programs at Firelight Media, and filmmaker panelists Jude Chehab, director of Q (2023),  Zippy Kimundu, co-director and co-producer of Our Freedom, Our Land (2023), and 2023 IDA Logan Elevate grantee Pallavi Somusetty, as they discuss ways to make room for their storytelling and reimagine their audiences.

More info and registration: https://www.documentary.org/event/storytelling-our-way-filmmakers-color-forge-their-path

Re-Take Oakland filmmaker, Jenn Lee Smith, was a panelist for Will You Be My Angel Funder? at the CAAMFest Filmmaker Summit. The panel focused on discussing what moves donors to invest in Asian American stories.

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Will You Be My Angel Funder?

Friday, May 10, 2024, 11:30 am

In partnership with A-Doc.

Featuring Jenn Lee Smith (Donor, Producer, Home Court), Masashi Niwano (Director of Artist Development, SFFILM), Robina Riccitiello (Partner, Spark Features), and Diane Quon (Executive Producer, Taste of Mango, Home Court).

Moderated by Don Young (Director of Programs, CAAM)

More info on CAAM’s website.

Re-Take Oakland filmmaker, Jennifer Huang, recently participated in several events in Europe.

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FIFDH

Jennifer Huang pitched her film, The Long Rescue, at FIFDH on March 12, 2024. The film is one of the 16 documentary projects selected to take part in the Impact Lab 2024. The Long Rescue follows Filipina teen sex trafficking survivors for nine years in an intimate journey of recovery.

Centering Care, Consent and Community in Visual Storytelling

Jennifer Huang was a speaker at Centering Care, Consent and Community in Visual Storytelling, a community learning event on best practices for consent-based, trauma-informed, and community-centered visual storytelling presented by ART WORKS Projects, Re-Present Media, Video Consortium, and The Hague Humanity Hub on March 25, 2024. Organized with the Movies that Matter Festival, the event aimed to engage diverse participants who have been using visual storytelling to create impact, whether in grassroots organising, advocacy, education, fundraising, or policy change.

Movies that Matter

Jennifer Huang was a speaker on the panel, Power Dynamics and International Co-productions, at Movies that Matter on March 25, 2024. Jennifer also served on the jury for the Camera Justitia Award.

CPH:DOX – INTRO:DOX

Jennifer Huang attended CPH:DOX and participated in the INTRO:DOX program for emerging filmmakers working on their first or second non-fiction feature.

Congratulations to Re-Take Oakland filmmaker, Pallavi Somusetty, for being selected as a 2024 BAVC MediaMaker Fellow, with her film, Coach Emily. Participants in the 2024 BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship receive $10,000 in unrestricted funding, mentorship, industry access, feedback sessions, and workshops during an immersive 9-month experience.

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.

Congratulations to Re-Take Oakland filmmaker A.K. Sandhu! ALIVE IN BRONZE: Huey P. Newton is nominated for Outstanding Short Form Documentary for the 2024 NAACP Image Awards!

In ALIVE IN BRONZE: Huey P. Newton, sculptor Dana King’s hands and activist Fredrika Newton’s memories come together to build a new monument that honors the Black Panther Party’s vital place in American history.

Congratulations to Re-Take Oakland filmmakers, Jessica Jones and A.K. Sandhu, for being selected as 2024 SFFILM FilmHouse Residents. The FilmHouse Residency is managed by SFFILM Makers, the artist development program at SFFILM, and provides 12-month residencies to local filmmakers actively engaged in various stages of production.

Jessica Jones‘s documentary short, Women Who Ride, profiles Tish Edwards, the founder of Oakland’s first black women’s motorcycle club D’Vious Wayz.

A.K. Sandhu‘s feature documentary, UNTITLED MOTHERHOOD Project, follows women who dare to choose while defying the patriarchy in a time when their reproductive rights are no longer guaranteed.

Congratulations to For Us, By Us fellow, Priyanka Suryaneni, for being awarded the East Bay Fund for Artists grant from the East Bay Community Foundation for her film, Saranam Gacchâmi (I take refuge).

Saranam Gacchâmi is a documentary film about an enterprising Buddhist Monk who defies all odds to set up one of the largest Tibetan Monasteries in the Bay Area to preserve the endangered Tibetan culture and traditions.

For Us, By Us fellow, Chad Santo Tomas, was featured in BAVC Media‘s SF Commons Presents: Personal Docs event on December 14, 2023 at Ninth Street Independent Film Center in San Francisco.

The event highlighted personal documentary filmmaking from local Bay Area filmmakers through a series of snippets from films and moderated discussion with the filmmakers about the challenges and triumphs in their creative process from development to distribution. Other featured filmmakers were Elizabeth Herrera, Mabel Valdevizio, and Vanessa Smith.