Announcing the 2021 Summer Feedback Loop Selected Projects

We are excited to announce the team of selected filmmakers and projects for the first edition of BGDM's 2021 Feedback Loop Program. This iteration of Feedback Loop will focus on Editing & Festival Strategy preparation for members with projects under 2 hours in the late rough cut edit stage, to be paired with a consulting editor and a festival curator.

Selected Projects & Filmmakers

FOR LOVE AND LEGACY | A.K. SANDHU

Dana King, an ex-news broadcaster reborn as an artist, sets out to sculpt an important part of American history when she is commissioned by her friend and ex-Black Panther, Fredrika Newton. Their collaboration takes place in a time when America is energized to reevaluate the stories that monuments are telling and this film follows the journey of two women working to honor the Black Panther Party's vital place in American history.

SWING AND SWAY (WORKING TITLE) | ADRIANA BARBOSA

Fernanda is a Brazilian living in São Paulo. Adriana is a Mexican-Brazilian living in Los Angeles. They reconnect through video-letters to share the reality of 2020 around them using as inspiration the poetic gaze of 16 women experimental filmmakers.

THE KINLOCH DOC | ALANA WOODSON

The Kinloch Doc shares the story about the rise and demise of Missouri's first Black city through the lens of a descendant, Alana Marie.

THE FEELING OF BEING CLOSE TO YOU | ASH GOH HUA

The Feeling of Being Close to You documents an attempt at healing the trauma of touch between mother and child. Driven by a pure desire for intimacy, my mother and I talk openly for the first time about the intergenerational trauma and abuse within our lives. Grounded within the specific epoch of 90s Singapore, the film generates a radical response to cyclical violence.

INNER WOUND REAL | CARRIE HAWKS

Inner Wound Real (IWR) relays the stories of three BIPOC people who used self-harm in order to feel better, then find new ways to cope.

FIRE THROUGH DRY GRASS | DIANA DIROY

On a tiny island in NYC, a group of Black and brown disabled artists fight COVID and the city to protect the lives of 500 vulnerable nursing home residents.

SMILE4KIME | ELENA GUZMAN

Smile4Kime is a short documentary film that uses live-action footage and animation to tell the story of two friends who transcend time, space, and even death to find hope and resilience through their struggles with mental health

STORMING CAESARS PALACE | HAZEL GURLAND-POOLER

Storming Caesars Palace is the untold story of Black women who took on Presidents, the Mob, and everyday Americans, challenging the pernicious lie of the “Welfare Queen.” Activist Ruby Duncan and a band of ordinary low-income mothers launch one of the most extraordinary feminist, anti-poverty movements in our history, providing a blueprint today for an equitable future.

HAZING | JESSICA LEE SALAS

In Hazing, award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt lifts the veil on a variety of secret, underground rituals that are often dehumanizing, abusive, and sometimes deadly. Byron, a member of a fraternity, places hazing culture under the microscope to reveal a world of toxic masculinity, violence, humiliation, sexual degradation, binge drinking, denial, and institutional coverups.

¡QUBA! | KIM ANNO

¡Quba! tells an epic and intimate story of the LGBTQ movement in Cuba as key activists battle for marriage equality and transform the social fabric of their country. Music, humor and performance are persuasive tools that touch the hearts and minds of Cubans as they face the opposition of the evangelical church.

I OF THE WATER: THE UNWRITTEN LIFE OF SIA FIGIEL | KIMBERLEE BASSFORD

After a suicide attempt pushes her into self-exile, acclaimed Samoan writer Sia Figiel begins to make sense of her troubled past and the impact of childhood traumas.

AFTER DARRIEN | KRISTAL WILLIAMS

Six years after a young Black man is shot by police in Utah, his family gathers to celebrate what would have been his 28th birthday amidst a nationwide awakening to racism and police brutality, while navigating their own survivors guilt, and grieving his loss.

BRING HER HOME | LEYA HALE

Bring Her Home follows three Indigenous women — an artist, an activist, and a politician — as they fight to vindicate and honor their missing and murdered relatives who have fallen victims to a growing epidemic across Indian country. Despite the lasting effects from historical trauma, each woman must search for healing while navigating racist systems that brought about this very crisis.

A PLACE OF ABSENCE | MARIALUISA RAMIREZ ERNST

Deeply affecting and poetic, this film follows the director's journey with the Caravan of Mothers of Missing Migrants — Central American women desperately searching for sons and daughters who vanished en route to the U.S. — to better understand her mother's emotional turmoil in the aftermath of her uncle's disappearance during Argentina's “Dirty War.”

CLOUDS - THIS TOO SHALL PASS | MARIANA BLANCO

Clouds: A contemplation on love and spirituality in an era of unprecedented distraction. In a head-down world, looking up may be a truly radical act.

ABUELITA OUTSIDE | MIASARAH LAI

Captured by her granddaughter, Miasarah returns to the Lower East Side, NYC to chronicle Maria’s everyday experiences with Alzheimers. Maria can only communicate through song and fragmented Puerto Rican rhythms. Abuelita Outside is a sensory ethnographic feminist meditation on care, love, and family.

SIRENS | RITA BAGHDADI

On the outskirts of Beirut, Lilas and Shery navigate the ecstasy and agony of friendship, sexuality and revolution while competing to be leader of their thrash metal band. Sirens is an intimate, gothic verite documentary about the first all-female metal band in the Middle East.

COLLISIONS | ROOPA GOGINENI

Every year more than 80,000 meteorites crash into earth. Many land in the stark Saharan sands, where they are spotted by passing nomads. Some are worth far more than earthly gold, others contain clues to the deep history of our solar system. Now everyone is looking.