In the latest episode of the DOK Industry Podcast, filmmaker, activist and co-founder of Re-Present Media Jennifer Crystal Chien joins host Toni Bell in examining the need to generate new and more authentic representations and portrayals of BIPOC communities and expand those stories to other ways of storytelling.
Crystal Chien and Bell discuss some of the challenges faced by BIPOC filmmakers working within the context of the white dominant narrative, and how the white-centring culture continues to affect their work and what films ultimately get made and seen.
This discussion engages the vital question of who is determining what is of interest and to whom. The question of audience (whether the film is compelling enough, or whether it includes enough explanation and context) is an important one because it is often asked from the white dominant perspective, which influences the filmmaking process and limits topics and story arcs deemed acceptable for mainstream storytelling, thus barring some BIPOC filmmakers from accessing funding structures if they do not follow a certain type of mainstream narrative.
The episode also delves into the work of Re-Present Media, which advocates for personal storytelling and its potential to lend nuance to stories from underrepresented communities in the complex cultural landscapes and offer a wider range of topics that are not necessarily focused on a social-issue agenda but represent the fullness of human experience.
Curators of the episode are Toni Bell and Brianna Jovahn. Toni Bell is the creator and host of the What's Up with Docs Podcast and archival researcher (listen to Bell’s previous episodes on archives in Season 2 and Season 3 of the DOK Industry Podcast). She is the Impact Producer for Re-Present Media’s “The Power of Personal Documentary Films” and “A Woman on the Outside.” She is also the Impact Partnerships Strategist for Odyssey Impact.
Guest speaker Jennifer Crystal Chien is a documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Re-Present Media, a grassroots nonprofit that aims to elevate voices from underrepresented communities and humanise media representations of those communities through a focus on personal storytelling.
The podcast is available on the DOK Leipzig website as well as on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Deezer. Part 2 of Bell’s conversation with Crystal Chien will be released soon on the What’s Up with Docs platform.
The DOK Industry podcasts are produced in collaboration with What’s Up with Docs and the Programmers of Colour Collective, with the support of Docs-in-Orbit and funding from Creative Europe, BKM, MDM and the City of Leipzig.
