A Quarter Century of
Film as Movement
How a grassroots screening became one of the longest-running LBTQIA+ BIPOC film festivals in the world.
About the Festival
The Festival
QWOCMAP opened in 2000 with free filmmaking workshops, a two-and-a-half-year waitlist, and one question: if we don’t tell our own stories, who will? And we’ve been unraveling the answer for over twenty-five years: hundreds of filmmakers trained, 515+ films in the catalog, and the International Queer Women of Color Film Festival, now in its 22nd year.
Cost
Always free. Always has been.
Who We Feature
Emerging, established, and critically acclaimed LBTQIA+ BIPOC filmmakers from around the world.
Our filmmakers are African Descent/Black, Asian, Chicanx/Latinx, Indigenous/Two Spirit, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander, Southwest Asian, North African/Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian, and Mixed-Race lesbian, bisexual, queer women (cisgender and transgender), nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and transgender people of color.
Your Festival
This is a community event. The films are made by us, for us, and shown in spaces we build together.
Milestones
QWOCMAP Founded
Award-winning filmmaker Madeleine Lim launches free filmmaking workshops with California Arts Council funding. As the first media arts training centered on LBTQIA+ BIPOC communities in San Francisco, the waitlist grows two and a half years long before the first film is finished.
First Public Screening
Three years of free workshops produce enough films to show. The first Queer Women of Color Film Night fills the SF LGBT Community Center: standing-room-only, line down the stairs and around the block. The Center is still a Community Partner today.
Now An Organization
QWOCMAP joins the Multicultural Artistic Development (MCAD) of the Queer Cultural Center - The Center for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Art & Culture. This program allowed Mad to turn the California Arts Council individual artist fellowship into the first LBTQIA+ BIPOC media arts organization in the world. First grants from Astraea Foundation and Horizons Foundation arrived the same year.
Distribution Program Begins
QWOCMAP starts distributing films directly to other festivals, classrooms, and community organizations. The boutique Distribution Program becomes the third leg of the program pipeline: from first film to festival screening to distribution.
The Film Festival Begins
The one-night screening expands into the International Queer Women of Color Film Festival, a multi-day event built around films from QWOCMAP’s own training program and LBTQIA+ BIPOC filmmakers worldwide. Always free.
Community Support
After the first successful Angel reception in the previous year, activist donors join the inaugural Producers Circle. The 2008 Festival features Pratibha Parmar in a Featured Panel and screens five programs over three days.
First Triple-Language Screening
In partnership with Mujeres al Borde, a LesBiTrans organization from Bogotá, Colombia, QWOCMAP presents its first triple-language screening: English, Spanish, and ASL. The same year, QWOCMAP releases its community safety process developed alongside SF Women Against Rape, CUAV, and Allgo.
Film & Freedom Academy Launches
QWOCMAP launches the Film & Freedom Academy, an intensive cohort-based training for LBTQIA+ BIPOC filmmakers. The Academy was designed to rotate by community and theme, and root filmmaking in LBTQIA+ people of color and their local communities. We took the Academy on the road and traveled the U.S. from the Navajo Nation to Austin, Little Rock, and Pittsburgh.
Workshops Hit the Road
After a year, the Film & Freedom Academy travels to inland California to strengthen LBTQIA+ people of color communities in regions that voted against marriage equality. The first stop is Stockton, in partnership with San Joaquin Pride.
Open Captions on Every Film
QWOCMAP requires open captions on every film submitted to the Festival, becoming one of the first festivals in the country to do so. The decision sets a standard the rest of the industry takes years to follow.
First Spanish-Language Workshop in Tijuana
QWOCMAP conducts the Film & Freedom Academy in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico — the first cross-border workshop, taught in Spanish by Liliana M. Hueso, the first Board Chair. The workshop strengthens LBTQIA+ community in Tijuana, where Liliana and QWOCMAP had supported the city’s first-ever Pride two years earlier.
Film & Freedom Academy for LBTQIA+ Muslims of Color
QWOCMAP runs the Film & Freedom Academy for LBTQIA+ Muslims of Color in partnership with the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC). The workshop is planned years in advance and coincides with QWOCMAP’s BDS statement.
New Home in the Presidio
After significant time and resources, QWOCMAP moves into a new office in the Presidio National Park: a beautiful, accessible, and grounding space where coyotes, hawks, and great blue herons are regular neighbors. LBTQIA+ people of color taking over federal park land.
Twenty-Five Years of QWOCMAP
The City of San Francisco rescinds $500,000 in already-awarded funding. The community responds: the Producers Circle campaign raises $110,000+, and the Silver Cabaret & Ball at the Asian Art Museum brings the 25th Anniversary year home. The Festival runs anyway — 49 films across seven screenings, the first QWOCFF Industry Day, record attendance, and a film catalog that crosses 500 films.
