Fostering Community Power Amid Systemic Challenges
Five Media-Makers of Color Speak Out, Part V
As part of our series for the Collective Wisdom field study, we present an excerpt from a conversation between Juanita Anderson, Maria Agui Carter, Thomas Allen Harris, Maori Karmael Holmes, and Michèle Stephenson.
Read Part I, Part II, Part III , and Part IV here.
Part IV of the conversation ended with an observation by Michèle Stephenson, that gatekeepers can abuse their power by questioning the reality of the experiences of filmmakers and subjects. Here, she picks up the thread.
Michèle: I’ll use the example of American Promise. We would not be able to create that work if it wasn’t for the program officers of color who supported us and believed in our story along the way. People like Orlando Bagwell, Rasheed Shabazz, Raquiba Labrie, [and] Kathy Im. I’m not saying other program officers didn’t support the work. They came later. Black program officers came in first and immediately understood our vision in terms of our story and on how we worked with our partners as we worked on what our engagement campaign would look like.
Juanita: I think historically, the power is in the work that we do behind the scenes — that nobody ever sees. Back in the early eighties, as a first-time participant on a CPB cultural affairs funding panel, I was shocked that white panelists were about to turn down proposals by makers of color because they had never heard of this particular artist or issue. And in those instances, you have to sit there and assert that this is the very reason this artist and their story needs to be told. Also, it is important to recognize the work of black, brown, and Indigenous filmmakers and producers in founding consortia associations to help each other’s projects get into the world.
Michèle: Oh yeah. People are like, “Well, I have some money. You got some money, let’s make this move so we can help support this and that project.” And I think this kind of co-operation between those with some leverage in the industry is really important to note.
Maria: I want to jump in here because there’s a couple of things. First, I have been mentored by so many, and love so many of my black brothers and sisters in positions of power, and they have been there for me because we have fewer Latinos in those positions as program officers, as funders, as show-runners, as executives in media across the board. And I want to pick up on this concept of co-creation as our communities color supporting each other in funding and creating work.
I spent many years as Chair of the Board of NALIP, the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, now about to celebrate its 20th year. We’re the longest-running organization of Latinx media makers and many of our programs for the field have resulted in an explosion of Latinx media-makers today. And co-creation is absolutely our community of artists picking ourselves up by our bootstraps when sometimes we didn’t even have boots, and a number of years ago we began accepting non-Latinx people of color to our NALIP programs because we recognized how kindred we are with access issues around media-making. I started a [residency for women] writer/directors-of-color … across all ethnicities, and I still don’t see another residency like it. Right now, it’s on hiatus because we lost our very special (and charitably contributed) estate where it was being held. And there’s a gap because I have testimonies from women who attended the retreat, many of whom have said it was one of the most formative experiences of their careers and have gone on to do very well and to lift each other up. I think this was in large part because I also engaged mentors of color from our communities so that we could share collective wisdom of our master artists, and we also called on and honored the value of the knowledge and critiques our fellows could provide for one another.
It’s valuable to not privilege the guidance coming from people outside of our communities who may be very well-intentioned but lacking the nuance that comes from our understanding of our particular histories and priorities. Often, the microaggressions can happen from those mentoring us from outside our communities not because they are trying to hurt us, in fact, they are trying to be allies, but they don’t always have that necessary knowledge base. That’s part of why I and some other artists dreamed this retreat was necessary — it did not exist before. We had a submission and review process and selected twelve artists from each cohort.
It was such a joy to think about the specific needs of our writers and directors of color in a retreat tailored to their needs. As Artistic Director I poured so much care into it, and so much joy. We had a chef cooking our fellows multi-course farm-to-table meals so they felt how valued and cared for they were, beautiful rooms with fresh flowers everywhere, we had forest and mountain, fire circles and waterfalls and walks and picnics, and we had so much story and art and supportive criticism and deep elevation of our work and each of us questioned and pushed and held each other up, but also respected and trusted and believed in one another’s capacities. I am hoping to run that Artist Retreat Center again if I can find the support!
Michèle: Maria, there’s no reason why that retreat that you started shouldn’t continue to be funded. The need is clearly there.
Thomas: Agreed! I think that’s the kind of thing that funders should actually be seeking out to fund, especially given where we are right now in the media landscape. I mean that kind of nurturing or workshop or residency, that can really lift folks up — and also comes from a person of color perspective that re-orients assumptions around who gets to speak for whom. We are at a place now where we can question what is mainstream and who is mainstream and why.
For the television series I am working on now for PBS, I was mentored by the Center for Asian American Media. I am obviously not Asian American but CAAM was able to actually see the value of my project and how it contributed to their larger goals around representation and public media. Things are no longer siloed and we’re realizing a kind of win-win narrative as opposed to I’ve got to get mine, which is so much of the ethos of this industry on a certain level and can be very destructive. We’re supporting each other and giving back.
Michèle: While giving back and mentorship is a great thing to do and important, it’s also draining. It’s part of what many of us feel we have to do. We are constantly supporting up and coming filmmakers of color but you know, there’s only a certain amount of bandwidth. And I think in some cases if we don’t carve out time for our own creativity, our own creativity suffers because that requires headspace as well.
The other thing that will lead to this idea of empowerment is more transparency in funding and how money is distributed in the field. Give me what the real numbers are. The Center for Media and Social Impact and the International Documentary Association released a study last year on the state of the documentary field based on data gathered from non-fiction filmmakers. I felt there were some key questions around money, power and race, and class that were not directly addressed. And more importantly, we still don’t have the numbers from funders and foundations.
It’s one thing for us to answer a survey, and another to find out the lay of the land from foundations, broadcasters, streaming entities/platforms. I want to know what’s being funded, also where do I fit in the larger landscape or field. In order to see that, I need to know from the funding and investment side what their statistics are. If that makes sense? Then we can get an accurate picture and have a deeper understanding of what sustainability looks like and where self-reflection intervention may need to happen to achieve a greater sense of equity and re-imagine the possibilities of co-creation. With an accurate assessment of what the funding landscape looks like I can make an informed decision about the directions I can pursue in the field.
I feel the field is still far from transparent. We don’t have the statistics when it comes to those who hold the purse strings and power to greenlight. The studies of those trends need to come to light. It’s something that I’m hoping IDA does a deeper dive into so [that] we as storytellers can better understand the funding landscape. But also, so we as a field can render those with funding power more accountable.
Thomas: …and the idea also of sustainability.
Michèle: Yes.
This article is part of Collective Wisdom, an Immerse series created in collaboration with Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab. Immerse’s series features excerpts from MIT Open Documentary Lab’s larger field study — Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media within Communities, across Disciplines and with Algorithms — as well as bonus interviews and exclusive content.
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