QWOCMAP Introduces Reel Bites!

Welcome to Reel Bites, QWOCMAP's new quarterly
eNewsletter.

With each release, there will be QWOCMAP filmmaker
profiles, updates on our programs, and yes,
much more!

Celebrate our 5th Anniversary in 2009!

We will celebrate our 5th Anniversary Queer Women of Color Film Festival in June 12-14, 2009. Our Featured Screening will showcase films about immigration by queer women of color. In conjunction with our 2009 Film Festival, we will hold Immigration Convenings with immigrant, people of color, and LGBTQ organizations to foster coalition building among these communities, generally viewed in opposition to each other. In the Fall of 2009, we plan bring our model of art, activism, and community engagement to Texas and New York with additional Featured Screenings and Immigration Convenings.

We hope that our Immigration Convenings will erase false divides and help to change the contentious national debates about the human rights of immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ people. Though queer women of color are often considered an unimportant niche, in truth, we are a bridge for multiple communities and multiple movements. As we saw in the recent election, no one community can stand alone when it comes to our human rights.

Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project

QWOCMAP Filmmaker Mónica Enríquez

In each issue of Reel Bites, we'll bring you a profile of one of our fabulous QWOCMAP filmmakers. Their films bring audiences together, to tears and to their feet!

Before entering our Training Program, Mónica says “I didn't have any real experience in film previous to taking QWOCMAP workshops....no training.” By the age of 23, Mónica’s 1st QWOCMAP film, A Journey Home, won the LGBT Jury Award at the 2004 SF Latino Film Festival. Mónica later became a Film Curator with our own Queer Women of Color Film Festival, where she was received mentorship and co-curated standing-room-only screenings. She was inspired to attend the UC Santa Cruz Digital Arts & New Media MFA program, where she recently graduated. She was also Co-Director of their 2008 Women of Color Film & Video Festival.

What Mónica received from QWOCMAP:
“I learned how to start finding my creative voice. I produced two short pieces through QWOCMAP and I learned how to get to what I wanted to say through video and I did it from beginning to end. That teaches you to believe in yourself and to articulate your own ideas. It didn't only affect my life, but it changed my life. I can actually trace most of really important moments of my past 5 years in relation to QWOCMAP... either when I took the Introductory and Intermediate workshops… when I curated the Latina film night or the "Loving In The War Years" [screening] and my parents were in the audience. QWOCMAP has been with me as I have gone through and developed my identity, claimed my art as art and decided to go to an MFA program."

What’s next?
"I am trying to start an artist collective of queer people of color that see art as an intervention. I am also working on a video installation that deals with detention and imprisonment, migration and queerness."

Go Mónica, we love you!

Training Program filmmaking workshops

Viva Volunteers!

There is nothing that our QWOCMAP Festival Team, volunteers and Community Parnters can't do!

This fabulous group produced our 2008 Queer Women of Color Film Festival, which was a success beyond our expectations. We worked with 35 stellar filmmakers, 13 awesome Community Partner organizations, 10 wonderful co-presenters, 30 tireless Festival Team members and an additional 30+ fabulous festival volunteers!

Almost 2,000 people attended our weekend festival, which was held once again at the 375-seat Brava Theater in San Francisco! Festival attendees came from all over California and as far away as Boston, New York, Guam & Europe! Every screening was full and 500+ audiences attended our Featured Screening "From Queer API Women With Love"! An amazing performance by Las Bomberas de la Bahía filled our spirits.

Our Film Festival was featured in 96 hours, KPFA, OUT Spoken TV, and in blogs from San Francisco to Sweden. It also won a 2008 Best of the Bay Award from the SF Bay Guardian.

Community Partners are wonderful!

Donate to QWOCMAP and create community!

If you love QWOCMAP, like we love QWOCMAP...

you know that all donations, large and small, make our work possible. With your help, we are able to offer our award-winning Training and Exhibition Programs free of charge. We couldn't do it without you and we couldn't love you more! Our accomplishments are only possible because of amazing and much-needed contributions like yours, which nurture inspiration, creativity and community.

Please consider joining our QWOCMAP community of supporters, either as a regular monthly donor or a member of our Producers Circle. For the holidays, or any day, give the rare and precious gift of films created by queer women of color to our community, families, and allies. Your thoughtful donation supports queer women of color films, filmmakers, and community.

If you have any questions regarding donations to QWOCMAP, please feel free to contact us at (415) 752-0868 or events@qwocmap.org.

Join our QWOCMAP community of supporters