Revisit Our Live Chat on Gender Identity, Violence, and Two Spirits

On Monday, June 13 leaders from the LGBT community joined ITVS, KQED, and Independent Lens for a discussion about issues raised in the film Two Spirits.

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Tags: gay pride, gender, KQED, LGBT, pride month, San Francisco, sexual identity, sexuality, transgender

Filmmaker Kathy Huang Discusses TALES OF THE WARIA

ITVS’s Open Call provides finishing funds for single non-fiction or animation public television programs on any subject and from any viewpoint. Projects must have begun production as evidenced by a work-in-progress video.

Check out the clip below with filmmaker Kathy Huang, who received Open Call funds for her film TALES OF THE WARIA. The film looks at three transgender individuals in Indonesia––the world’s largest Muslim country––who search for love and acceptance with unexpected results. Learn more about what Huang hopes people will learn from the film.

Find more information about Open Call funding >>

Tags: Indonesia, Muslim, Open Call, transgender, waria

The Masculinity Project: Virtual Screening of REALNESS by David Barclay Moore

The National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) and ITVS recently launched a web-based “virtual screening” series, which showcases some of the latest short documentaries from the Masculinity Project. Each screening will be followed by a Q&A and give audience members worldwide the opportunity to engage with the filmmaker. Filmmaker David Barclay Moore is known for his films about Black male culture and how it interacts with and influences others. Below he discusses his latest film REALNESS, which explores masculinity from a female’s perspective who’s transitioning into a man. The film will have a virtual screening tonight at 8:00 PM EDT.

Shortly after being approached to take part of the Masculinity Project, David Barclay Moore believed it was essential to explore masculinity through a female’s perspective.

“Masculinity is not relegated to the realm of biological men,” Moore said. “Masculinity is a fluid construct, which each of us adapts to our own lives. With modern science, it’s easier nowadays to mold our outward appearance to fit our inner being, but there are still consequences to that and the journey of transformation is not an easy one.”

Filming the subject was no small task. Moore was in charge of nearly everything involved in the film’s production. According to him, the longest and most challenging part of the process was the research phase of pre-production.

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Tags: African American, Masculinity Project, transgender

ITVS Hosts Queer X-Change for LGBT Filmmakers

As part of ongoing efforts to bring young and emerging talent to public television, ITVS recently hosted an invitation-only event for four filmmakers from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Each were nominated by veteran producers who attended 2007’s LGBT Filmmaker Summit, a meeting that addressed issues related to the LGBT community. The ITVS Queer X-Change was hosted by the Programming Department’s Richard Saiz and Jonathan Archer and featured a case-study from ITVS-funded filmmaker Johnny Symons, who gave feedback to the presenters along with ITVS-funded filmmaker Charlotte Lagarde. Attendee Andy Blubaugh offers his take below.

Andy Blubaugh discusses his film THE ADULTS IN THE ROOM at the ITVS Queer X-Change.

I’ll admit, I was skeptical when I was invited to the Queer X-Change, an event aimed at encouraging emerging LGBT directors to produce for public television. My own film, THE ADULTS IN THE ROOM, seemed like a stretch for public television, both in its content and its execution. Worse, I had become wary of the effort that’s required to even be considered for ITVS funding. The Open Call process, while rewarding for the films that make it through, is arduous and time consuming. I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to try again.

But when you get an invitation to attend something like this, you don’t hesitate. You pack your bags, burn a ton of DVDs, and get excited.

As we gathered at the ITVS headquarters in San Francisco, I started to get nervous. Was I even ready to show my project in front of these people? These were, after all, the most important decision makers in public television that I’ve ever been in a room with. I felt outgunned.

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Tags: bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender