But there aren’t any…
So, women often hear in the film biz that “We would love to promote women filmmakers but there just aren’t that many around.” Well, I suspect the same holds true for people of color making films. And like women, I’m sure there are plenty of them around.
If you just look at the list of women filmmakers on the Film Fatales website, not only will you see a ton of female filmmakers, but you will see there are a ton of female filmmakers of color.
Now you are wondering, why don’t I know of most of those people? Ah, this is a conundrum. They exist and yet they are not promoted. Not promoted in terms of opportunities, but also not promoted in terms of marketing. It’s all about the cash and the connections. It’s about who knows who, nepotism and social media followers. It’s about a very elite and specific group of white male BUSINESSMEN keeping the reigns.
It’s not about talent. It’s not about training. It’s not even about experience…though it is harder for women and people of color to get the experience. It’s about MONEY. It’s about unconscious bias and conscious bias.
It’s about ivy league schools and the connections made there by a small group of people who were probably already connected to tons of money and opportunity and again nepotistic ability.
I could list examples of all of this and point out how most people have gotten in the door at Hollywood. I could even point out how their opportunity came from decades ago before they were born when someone from their family got in the door in the beginning. NOT KIDDING.
But instead below is a list of links where you can find out about some unknown POC filmmakers and some popular POC filmmakers. I could talk about their accomplishments and work, but the proof is in the pudding. So go watch some of their films. Take a chance on a filmmaker you never heard of that has a film that looks interesting to you and watch some of the films that you may have heard about but never took to the time to view.
And, I’d like to ask that when someone says “there just aren’t any…” to you, you share these links as well.