QUEER WOMEN OF COLOR MEDIA ARTS PROJECT-QWOCMAP
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Mission Statement
QWOCMAP creates, exhibits, and distributes films that authentically reflect the lives of African Descent/Black, Native American/Indigenous, Asian, Chicanx/Latinx, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander, Southwest Asian, North African/Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian, and multi-ethnic queer women of color (cisgender & transgender) and nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and transgender people of color (any orientation). QWOCMAP changes who makes films, which transforms the craft of filmmaking itself, reshaping the kinds of films that are made and the stories that are told, to build narrative power. QWOCMAP develops the leadership and creativity of its community, and meet the needs of this diverse multi-racial, pan-ethnic population by tailoring its programs and partnering with other organizations that have complementary expertise. QWOCMAP uses film to reveal the lived truths of inequality, build community, and strengthen movements to challenge the roots of intersecting social justice issues that concern multiple communities, and create a world where equity and justice are the norm.
About This Cause
Founded in 2000 by award-winning independent filmmaker Madeleine Lim QWOCMAP’s Filmmaker Training Program provides FREE, artistically rigorous, professional workshops that have nurtured the creation of 452+ new films. The program tours California and the U.S. The program maintains a 3-year waiting list; its first international Spanish-language cross-border filmmaking workshop in Tijuana, Mexico was conducted in 2015, and requests pour in from Australia to Uganda. QWOCMAP was founded to amplify the voices and visions, perspectives and politics, talents and intelligence, artistic expression and assets of African Descent/Black, Native American/Indigenous, Asian, Chicanx/Latinx, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander, Southwest Asian, North African/Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian, and multi-ethnic queer women of color (cisgender & transgender) and nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and transgender people of color (any orientation). QWOCMAP’s Filmmaker Training Program develops leadership and creativity by demystifying filmmaking, and making film and related technology accessible to different educational levels, learning styles, and learning/cognitive disabilities. This program is regularly tailored for specific population segments, and QWOCMAP collaborates with other organizations that have complementary expertise. For example, 3 workshops to serve Two Spirit or LGBTQ Native American/Indigenous people were conducted in partnership with Native American Health Center, Bay Area American Indian Two Spirits, and the Gallup Film Foundation near the Navajo Nation capitol of Window Rock. In addition to film lectures and hands-on experience with industry standard equipment, intentional, culturally humble practices included community altars and sessions with a traditional healer. As a result, although Census estimates the Native American population at 2%, QWOCMAP’s participation is more than 10%. In 2018, the organization’s leadership was presented with a Pendleton blanket for their service to the Native Community. To QWOCMAP, who is behind the camera matters. Film is a powerful medium that shapes narratives and perspectives, and academic research indicates that inequity behind the camera results in film depictions that are extremely limited and often destructively stereotypical. As Dr. Brittney C. Cooper has noted, bias is a craft issue, a critical lack “…in their artistry that will affect the quality of work they produce.” Most often, the community that QWOCMAP serves is shown as deserving and acceptable targets of insults, hate speech, and graphic violence. Other studies prove that the way that the world sees us, impacts how it treats us. Therefore, QWOCMAP trains filmmakers to develop their aesthetic sensibility along with an understanding of the implications of their creative decisions so that their films reflect that full and complex humanity of communities that have been marginalized. For 20 years, the Filmmaker Training Program has launched participants into prestigious film programs like USC School of Cinematic Arts, and UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. They have won awards like the Berlin Teddy, ITVS, and Princess Grace, and are leaders at organizations like NBCUniversal and Google, in fields from education to advocacy, using their storytelling skills to win state legislation for domestic workers and healthcare. QWOCMAP is the first of 6 such organizations in the world, and the others, in New York, North Carolina, Colombia, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Taiwan, have been mentored and influenced by QWOCMAP to further amplify this work. In doing so, the organization has fostered racial and gender equity in film, the most expensive and recognized art form in the world. Since 2003, the FREE annual International Queer Women of Color Film Festival has world-premiered 1,000+ films, creating transnational connections between filmmakers, their films, and audiences, social issues, and grassroots organizations. Curatorial vision and expertly moderated public discussions foster deep engagement that galvanizes the shift from individual awareness to collective action. Intentional practices foster welcome, safety, and belonging, such as access for Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing people, fragrance free seating, and other free accommodations. It is lauded as “the most diverse of any arts event,” and “a profound learning experience that provokes deep understanding of both the films and their makers,” and the “platinum standard for accessibility.” Building community is one of QWOCMAP’s core values. Its Community Partner program is long-standing model for collaboration, promotion and outreach. First, it develops genuine relationships with other organizations that co-sponsor, financially support, promote and actively participate in the annual International Queer Women of Color Film Festival. They are matched with screening programs that address issues relevant to the populations that partners serve, ranging from immigration to sexual violence to raising children. This expands outreach, diversifies audiences and deepens community connections for QWOCMAP and it partners. Each year, the organization partner with more than 20 Bay Area, California and national partners, who report increased community engagement in their own organizations as a result of their relationships with QWOCMAP. This raises the public visibility of partners, who send staff members to interact with audiences during pre-screening receptions and participate in Featured Panels. More than 150 organizations have partnered with QWOCMAP, including our long-term partners that return year after year. These partnerships actually allow QWOCMAP to have such a large impact locally, nationally and internationally, and they make its work possible. After the Film Festival, QWOCMAP works with partners to provide tailored Filmmaker Training Program workshops for specific populations. For example, for 3 years, QWOCMAP partnered with San Francisco Women Against Rape (SFWAR) for the Life Healing Project. The project combined SFWAR’s anti-rape curriculum with QWOCMAP’s Filmmaker Training Program to increase awareness and public engagement around the factors that contribute to the spectrum of violence against lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer (LBTQ) women of color, including sexual harassment, sexual assault, intimate partner/domestic violence, hate violence, institutional and state violence. It also galvanized a shift from awareness to individual and collective action to prevent, reduce and end violence. It empowered LBTQ women of color as artist-activist filmmakers within a space of welcome, safety and inclusion to strengthen the leadership of our community. Films created through this process are remarkable for focusing on the healing of individuals and communities, rather than focusing on the violence that is prevalent in most mainstream films. These films are being used by the National Coalition on Violence and other anti-violence programs to educate communities and encourage healing. QWOCMAP’s goal is to create solidarity through the process of working together or collaborating on joint projects as well as to spark coalition building across societal lines and other divides. QWOCMAP works to bring together arts and non-arts, LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ, people of color and non-people of color, etc. organizations that so that we can learn, understand and support each other. Since 2005, the boutique film Distribution Program has released QWOCMAP films to the acclaim of international film festival jury and audience awards on every continent except Antarctica. It conducts popular education by presenting films, speakers, and incisive social justice discussions through partnerships with film festivals, universities, arts organizations, and temples/mosques/churches. Everything about QWOCMAP is informed by its community. First, each program has a human-centered design that incorporates diverse perspectives, as well as community leadership. Intensive feedback loops combine assessment activities such as surveys, verbal feedback, written evaluations, report back on what was heard/learned, outline implementation of suggestions/recommendations, and solicit additional feedback. This provides a 360 view of QWOCMAP’s work while documenting engagement. It measures progress towards goals and objectives and demonstrates impact. As a result, QWOCMAP has become a repository of 20-years of culturally competent data about its community. Second, 100% of QWOCMAP staff, Board, Advisory Board, volunteer leadership, and Mentors are deeply rooted in and members of, the community it serves. With this level of experience and expertise, the organization prioritizes vulnerable population segments, including LBTQ women of color survivors of violence, abuse, and trauma, Two Spirit Native American/Indigenous people, Muslims, migrants/immigrants (including undocumented), Sick & Disabled, Displaced and Houseless, and Formerly Incarcerated people. Additionally, QWOCMAP’s cultural humility fosters authentic relationships and active collaborations with organizations with specific complementary expertise such as Chicana/Latina Foundation, Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women & Trans Community, Asian Women’s Shelter, and Arab Resource and Organizing Center. QWOCMAP believes that arts and culture are integral to the daily lives, healing, and liberation of Black, Native American/Indigenous, people of color, particularly our LGBTQ artists, framing world views and life ways, adaptive capacities, and ways of being. Arts and culture are crucial to our creative strategies for collective survival, when others contract and shrink, QWOCMAP expands to support our communities through mutual aid and collective care. QWOCMAP pushes the field/art form of filmmaking and the film industry by returning art to its role to lead, define, and inform movements for change.