Black Women Disrupt the Web
COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on the world. Artists, Black women in particular, have been hit a severe blow, as many creative projects including film shoots have been cancelled or postponed. This is also a time where existing inequities and divides are further exacerbated by the pandemic, from increased gender-based violence, now hidden from view in quarantine, to a widening digital divide complicating connection with the world and increased police brutality. In response, Black Women Disrupt with Dylan Valley/ Far Horizon Films (the Coordination Team) will curate a web-based showcase and competition to highlight a globally diverse group of Black women Directors and Executive Producers of creative content in the form of pilot web series created in adherence to the World Health Organization’s social distancing guidelines.
The theme for this series will be “Imagining Black Futures”, and applicants may interpret this as broadly as they like, utilizing any genre they wish. The competition will be launched across four countries (Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Senegal), the top ten (10) productions selected will be recognized and narrowed down to five (5) semi-finalists who will receive tech assistance in production, industry specific business/marketing basics, and receive financial investment for post production. The semi-finalists’ work will become part of a multi-country showcase presented by Color Creative/ Issa Rae Productions. The finalist receives a cash prize, and participation in spotlight panels affiliated with major, Black, women owned and niche film or web series festivals/events.
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
Black women who are creative content producers face tremendous obstacles in accessing resources and opportunity everywhere. Outside of the United States and Europe, filmmakers and series producers also experience limited to no exposure both nationally and internationally.
This is evidenced by the scarcity of internationally acclaimed television and film projects led by Black women directors. The lack of recognition can have a profound impact on their ability to produce a large body of work, earn a living in the industry and tell unique stories that move and inspire. Our view is that the richness of a broader and multilingual African diaspora should be visible worldwide.
Despite gains made in some areas, the need for a more diverse range of voices and influence in the arts is still an urgent concern. The stellar success of Black Panther, Get Out and other major motion films still leave space wanting for women of African descent to be recognized in their directing and producing roles (Dee Reese, Lena Waithe, Nia DaCosta). Scholars such as Aymar Jean Christian have highlighted the ways in which the internet provides opportunities for a shift in this power dynamic.
“The Internet brought innovation to television by opening mass distribution to those excluded by legacy development processes, fostering new ways of creating and marketing series” (Christian 2011). Christian names these excluded groups as black, female and queer filmmakers and creatives, who had largely existed on the margins of the film and television industry.
We believe that by focusing on emerging artists and web-based content development, we will provide a unique opportunity for the creative in this case to tell her own story with guided support from mentors along the way and emerge from this process with a minimum viable product to share with the world.
For the first time, she will not have to spend precious resources trying to navigate this process alone and her experience will open up dialogue about the ways in which talent is barred from these processes and how there are layers which are cost and language prohibitive even for people who are extremely talented. We hope this project will add to the current debate on diversity in Hollywood and challenge that standard by highlighting an alternative narrative.
Impact
We finalized partnership to show our web series with KweliTV, and Africa Is A Country signed on to partner in support of the showcase event, we launched a partnership with Howard University Graduate Film Program to provide masterclasses on filmmaking basics like editing, scriptwriting and lighting, with Muica Film Festival in Colombia we presented a thematic panel on the challenges and opportunities of filmmaking in Colombia and with Spanish speaking women filmmakers of African descent, and DIMA LLC and a number of noted professionals in the fields of filmmaking, distribution, social justice and philanthropy who provided us with over 25 hours of free master classes and events to support our sister disruptors and broader community.
We brought in six readers, individuals with extensive filmmaking, writing or film critiquing experience including two members that reviewed in English, Portuguese and Spanish. This group narrowed the selection down to the top 10 who were acknowledged on social media and in the community closed group. Once we named the top 10 the group deliberated to select the top five which consisted of two sister disruptors from South Africa, and one each from Colombia, Brazil and Kenya.
We recruited and confirmed five individual mentors who we matched with the five semifinalists based on their technical strengths, and we recruited 7 other community mentors who helped us design and provide BWDW Master Classes and Thematic Panels for Phase Two offered to all those who applied or registered to participate reaching more than 2,000 participants over 10 hours of mentorship provided per semi-finalist.
KweliTV provided a hosting opportunity and streaming of the five semifinalist films July 9-11 and July 10 BWDW with Africa is A Country hosted a special recognition showcase event also streamed live on KweliTV with panel discussion with the filmmakers, special presentations from the partners, mentors and judges. The event culminated in the announcement of the finalist in the Showcase - Zulay Riascos, creator of “Permiso de Ausencia” of Bogota Colombia.
We provided $1,500 per semifinalist (5) in investment to create their web series, postproduction support (mixing, audio, color) at $1,000 and the finalist prize at $1,000 (we have not yet delivered the prize or support for the finalist to enter other festivals).
