Active Voice (now the Active Voice Lab) is my impact and engagement home. It’s the place where I really deepened my commitment to documentary film as the medium through which I could best contribute to the movements I believe in. And it’s the place where I strengthened my capacity to do so, under the mentorship of Ellen Schneider and Shaady Salehi, both powerhouses who I respect and admire and am lucky to call friends.
We just celebrated the 20th Anniversary of Active Voice and I’m honored to have been interviewed for it. If you’re interested in what I learned and what I’m seeing these days, click here.
Take a look at this new report I was commissioned to write by Ford JustFilms last fall called: Beyond Inclusion: The Critical Role of People of Color in the U.S. Documentary Ecosystem. It just released through IDA’s Getting Real 2020. You can access it here:
www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-reports/beyond-inclusion/
The report provides a critical overview of the work and influence of nonfiction organizations led by and serving People of Color in the US, from Third World Newsreel to Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and makes recommendations to funders and stakeholders on why and how these efforts should be resourced at this time. We hope this work can inform philanthropic funding strategies that support POC-led and serving organizations as new centers of gravity and influence in the field. Take a look and let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas for powering the recommendations.
beyondinclusionresearch@gmail.com