if you're in bergen, norway - go to this!

https://www.facebook.com/events/537638932936695/

on Sunday Dani Carerra (Wildness co-producer) and I organized a free community screening of Wildness at the Silver Platter - it was mainly for the folks who hadn't been able to make it to the LA premiere (see previous post) - including Koky (one of the bar owners and a main character in the film), some of the bar regulars, and wildness core... needless to say it was an intense, amazing/hard experience. amazing to see the film projected onto the stage of the bar, especially the performance scenes (double-take!). but also hard because it wasn't quite the turnout i had hoped for, despite how much outreach we did to try to get people from the bar to come out. more girls did turn up but mostly towards the end. nicol warned me that 9pm was too early - a better screening time would have been 11pm - my only regret was that we didn't just restart the film when it ended, so more people could see it. so we'll have do it again sometime, later...

but thinking back now, i'm realizing that my feelings of nausesa/expectation/disappointment just further expose the fact that there really is no ideal setting or audience for this film (or any film). there is no true "community" screening, where everyone is present and represented - regardless of if they even like the film (that's a whole other thing...) - but even just the idea that such a space/event could exist that truly brings everyone together. that was never really true of wildness the party, and it certainly isn't true about the film now.

for example, setting up the screening we had crazy tech problems - but what would a wildness event at silver platter be without wack sound? and without a slightly awkward trailing in of folks who were half-paying attention, half just searching for a beer... so in a way it was kinda perfect in in it's weirdness. but still STRESSFUL, given everything that was at stake for me, what i put my hopes into achievign. i am SRSLY learning to let go of all of that.

desipite knowing all this stuff in my brain, i'm realizing now how much i was still hoping in my heart to create a perfect community moment. like was this supposed to be the climax? i remember earlier questioning how to know when the film was truly "done" - well at this point i know that it's done because it is definitely OUT THERE in the world. not because it has been validated on certain levels, but because life continues to go on. maybe making a community project such as wildness is more like an earthquake that happens; at some point there is a rupture and the earth moves - but you never know how much of what you are experiencing is after-shock until it's way over... or SOMETHING.

the venue was initially a hard thing to figure out - we were in talks with OUTFEST for a while.... i was nervous that the Directors Guild of America Theater was too far west (and too west hollwoody culture) to attract all the different constituencies of the film. but we settled on it because it was the biggest venue, and also because it was legitimating. obviously not "everyone" (that is a hard word for me because of what it implies, in terms of the the questions the the film is trying to ask) was able to make it, but a LOT of trans and Latina folks came out, as well as the queer film/art world...

so this was kinda WHAT i had been waiting for since day one - all that effort shooting, editing, re-editing - was because i had tried to imagine one day screening the film for everyone all together in one room - which, including the scene of party-goers, was a lot of people! DGA1 was way sold out, all 600 seats ... but sadly not everyone was there. Koky for example had to work at the bar that night! and he couldn't get the time off (so much to say about that). Javier also could not make it because he needed to work, for reasons of financial hardship.

but all in all, i'd say it was a super amazing mix of all the people involved. INTENSITY. being there together...

Silver Platter patrons were sooo red carpet READY

WE GOT A STRETCH HUMMER OF COURSE

Silver Platter owner Nora Ramirez with her nephew and world class talent AMANDITITITA

the rush line was around the building!

Total Freedom

WILDNESS actress Gaby Velez Gomez

notice how my co-writer roya rastegar (far left) - her hair is actually mid-TWIRL

Q&A after the screening - this was a really cool moment !
left to right: me ;), cinematographer michelle lawler, co-writer roya rastegar, producer kathy rivkin, actor (who plays the voice of Silver Platter!) and assocate producer mariana marroquin, editor clair didier, camera and creative supporter ashley hunt, wildness DJ asma maroof, soundtrack musician robbie williamson, co-producer daniel carrerras, silver platter owner nora ramirez, and wildness DJs and co-founders ashland mines and daniel pineda

afterwards we PARRTIED!

it was truly a night to remember... :)

Support the Movement - Educate Yourself - Spread the Word - UNITE

Mariana Marroquin, the amazing activist and actor who plays the voice of the Silver Platter in Wildness, just shared this information: Her friend Fernanda Milan, a Guatemalan transactivist living in Copenhagen needs international support for her deportation case. Learn more about it here: http://tlounge.dk/save-fernanda/

people sometimes ask why WILDNESS includes my story (my friends and our club, etc) when it is supposed to be a film about the Silver Platter and the experience trans immigrants. the presumption is that the later is a more important, more politically urgent story. i would not disagree. but making a movie means creating a narrative and representing a subject matter. and i didn't want to feed the expected dominant narratives about trans* people: which is that we always die (in brutal ways), and somehow we deserve it because of our lifestyle.

*when i say trans it's often for lack of a better word for people who are gender non conforming and/or queer. i'm generally wary about LGBT "rhetoric" but there are ways in which the experiences - particularly folks who can be perceived as feminized (trans women, trans men, MSM, etc) - become the target of violence.

for example this film, call me kutu

we were all just at hot docs in toronto and this film did very well. nothing against the film or the filmmakers - but i'm just interested in how certain narratives are dominant - and therefore feed peoples expectations and they love the movie. for example i find even this short clip to be incredibly emotionally moving, but there is also a way in which it is so seductive around the rhetoric of western LGBT rights... soooo many things to say about that - but for another dayyyy...

1) this is not a new transgender jail/prison; it's temporary holding cell for when people get arrested and are awaiting arraignment. the max anyone would stay in this unit is 72 hours. if they are convicted, they get sent into general population jails run by the county. (ie trans women sent to mens jails etc) so this is mostly a gesture, not a solution. you can read that here:

City jails are designed for holding people only until they are arraigned in court on the charges for which they were arrested, typically a maximum of three days; then they are transferred to the Los Angeles County Jail, run by the Sheriff’s Department. The changes do not apply to the county jail.

2) while still a necessary response to the extreme risk posed by incarceration, transgender-segratated prisons are the wrong goal. i might've thought this would be self-evident, but after talking to regular progressive folks in LA (ie not trans activists) i realized there's a general misperception that the law actually protects trans people - whereas in reality, trans people suffer the most violence through the criminal justice system - in jails, by law enforement/parole, etc. you can read a LOT about that here. so in other words putting energy into building trans prisons, is like putting energy in the expanding the thing that hurts us most.

this is a GREAT resource:

http://makezine.enoughenough.org/prop8.html

i just had bibimbap with my old friends MEN and our friend parisa, who showed me the answer to getting dressed:

YESSTYLE DEEPSTYLE (SOUTH KOREA)

just when i had resigned wardrobe to one alexander wang thing per year (small closet)- i mean, something about getting a little older and more GNC - it's been really hard to find what to wear. NO MORE

this week i picked up on a thread of WILDNESS criticism from some toronto press- just wanted to address. it's impossible not to take these things personally on some level, so i own that. but it felt too loaded not to say something, even if it stirs the drama... 

the criticsm is about my character and the bar's charcater: either that my character is self-promotional, or that the bar is annoying. these reactions feel soo connected to something major we struggled with, when creating the story: how to portray the "women of the silver platter" -who are the main subject of the film- without exploiting them? it's funny how in documentary, one of the most powerful ways to assert authority as a director, is to disappear. because it creates the illusion of objectivity and truth for viewers, so they can sit back and comfortably be voyeur to a world they're outside of. if the director appears, we have to contend with his relationship to the subject matter, such as transgender immigrant women.

i've seen a lot of problematic films about trans people of color like this, with invisible directors. it's always so interesting to later learn who the director was and what their motivation was to make the film. 

not that it's an inherently bad thing to exploit minority subcultures even, because maybe that's the way to push society for acceptance (like for the sake of "visbility"). i just know that being a trans person, and having been exploited by media many times myself - i couldn't do that to the Silver Platter. I didn't want viewers to sit back at a comfortable distance. I included myself (young, college-educated, artist etc etc) at the risk of being vulnerable or even making people uncomfortable. i think repulsion comes from viewers having to see something reflected back, that's maybe closer to who they are.

i mean, during the writing process how many times did we ask ourselves: is this CRAZY to focus on the Wu character when the lives of the women of the bar are so amazing and their struggles so important? the hard answer after really thinking through the audiences, was yes. it is crazy, because it doesn't satisfy peoples pity-projections about the "authenticity" of a place like silver platter. we faced a lot of same attitude about wildness the party, so not surprised. (like people saying, "oh you think your party is so cool, like you discovered the bar." - and the whole point is, NO we did not. and no hipster party in any dive bar ever does - gross labels but i know that's how a lot of people think about it. furthermore it's so weird to contest in those terms.) 

it also reminds me again how powerful documentary can be at seeming like the truth- because my character is not actually me (the director)- it's a version we invented of a young/idealistic/fallible foil to the bar, who has a wiser perspective. both voices are a composite of me and roya (rastegar, co-writer), and the bar is also culled from many testimonial interviews from the community...

if anything, the bar actually does speak in a voice that is "OF" the women of the silver platter, because it was written and performed in collaboration with mariana marroquin, who is a transwoman, immigrated from Gautemala. so she is not just a "subject" she is an actor who has agency to represent herself here. so anyone who says the bar's voice is annoying - i'm sorry i just gotta be a little like: OK so you'd rather WATCH the "real" women- you just don't want them to speak as auteur, in a style that is truer to them, or our communities. Okaaay. nothing more i can say to that... enjoy the show!