Big things are happening at Brown Girls Doc Mafia (BGDM), an org advocating for women and non-binary people of color in documentary filmmaking. According to Filmmaker Magazine, BGDM has announced its board of directors and received a two-year, $105,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The board of directors, filmmaker Ursula Liang (“9-Man”), Film Sprout’s Denae Peters, and Nicole Tsien of “POV,” will collaborate with BGDM co-directors Iyabo Boyd and Tracy Nguyen-Chung.
“Brown Girls Doc Mafia was formed to tackle a myth that has been repeated in industry conversations, hiring discussions, festival programming meetings, and funder circles: that there aren’t many filmmakers of color worth paying attention to, especially not women of color. This lack of research and semi-conscious bias has discouraged, marginalized, and isolated legions of women filmmakers of color in documentary for generations,” stressed Boyd. “BGDM provides a nourishing atmosphere where women filmmakers of color and their projects can incubate, and women industry representatives of color can evolve in a safe place. With this expanded team, and the infusion of support from MacArthur, we’re able to pursue our priorities of community, visibility, access, sustainability, growth, creativity, and power at a higher level.”
“We believe that it is critical for women filmmakers of color to have access to industry festival and conferences, social environments, and academic exchanges where relationships are made, ideas are developed, and potential beneficiaries are identified,” Boyd and Nguyen-Chung stated. “Showing up in large numbers disrupts the film industry’s long standing barriers to diversity and inclusion, personifying the immediate possibility of radical change. Our initiatives are incredibly beneficial to BGDM members, but they have also proven to make a huge impact on the culture of documentary film spaces, and on how our overall community grows and improves around equity and inclusion.”
Boyd founded BGDM in 2015. The org has a global membership of over 2,400, and its offerings include membership events and workshops, access and visibility at industry events and in the media, opportunities for collaboration and career advancement, and financial guidance. BGDM will gather 50 members for its second Sundance get-together next month. Cristina Ibarra, Crystal Kayiza, Su Kim, Kristina Motwani, Jacqueline Olive, Jehane Noujaim, Nguyen-Chung, and Nanfu Wang are among the members premiering films at the fest.
