Frameline, a nonprofit LGBTQ media arts organization, is sending its 2017 collection of two films about queer and trans people of color (QTPOC) to 1,020 registered schools around the country for free. Titled “Resistance & Resilience: QTPOC Local to Global,”the collection brings together two documentaries: Call Me Kuchu and Gaysians. A professionally created curriculum accompanies the films.
Call Me Kuchu follows the life and work of the first openly gay man in Uganda, activist David Kato. Gaysians is a documentary short that features Asian American queer youth balancing family and daily life at the intersection of identities.
“Resistance & Resilience” is available to K-12 Gay-Straight Alliances or Gender & Sexuality Alliances (GSAs). Educators and students need only register at frameline.org/youth-in-motion.
The curriculum includes a list of key terms, guidelines for establishing respectful group discussions, a Uganda primer, exercises and actions, mini-bios of LGBTQ liberation pioneers, how to identify and fight discrimination, and a historical guide to intersectional activism that includes voting rights, education rights, fair wages, indigenous peoples and the right to health care.
The criminalization of homosexuality and working against prejudice across international borders are covered, as is a timeline of LGBTQ rights cases in the courts. The effects of colonialism, immigration and religion on LGBTQ rights are explored. A long list of resources is included.
Frameline suggest downloading GSA Network’s Implementing Lessons that Matter: The Impact of LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum on Student Safety, Well-Being, and Achievement and GLSEN’s LGBT-Inclusive Curriculum Guide for Educators.
Youth in Motion collections from previous years can be purchased from Frameline, including:
● Expanding Gender: Youth Out Front (2016)
● Visibility Through Activism: The Legacy of Vito Russo (2015)
● Insights: Queer Youth Defining Our Future (2014)
Web
Frameline Youth in Motion: frameline.org/youth-motion
Frameline on YouTube: youtube.com/frameline
Standing up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Kansas City LGBTQIA Facebook group: goo.gl/mo1dtg
Midwest Queer Trans Indigenous and People of Color Conference: midwestqipocc.wordpress.com
Films About LGBTQ People of Color: A Brief List
With bias crimes on the rise (Southern Poverty Law Center report – goo.gl/XVCdAN), Muslim refugees targeted for exclusion, an indigenous treaty violated and a fresh anti-transgender student executive order from POTUS, now is a good time to brush up on those activist skills. There is no better group to take the lead than today’s LGBTQ and allied youth.
Youth can often find inspiration in film, both documentary and fiction. The success of Barry Jenkins’ 2016 Moonlight and the newer films I Am Not Your Negro and Bayard & Me screening this year, activists of all ages have a chance to get inspired at the cinema.
Still from "Stud Life" - Campbell EX, filmmaker.
Here is a noncomprehensive list of some LGBTQ-themed films featuring people of color:
Moonlight
Tangerine
Pariah
Paris is Burning
White Frog
Blackbird
The Blue Hour
How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)
Spa Night
Front Cover
Fire Song
Permanent Residence
Happy Together
Y Tu Mamá También
I am Happiness on Earth
God Loves Uganda
Strange Fruit
Dirty Laundry
Touch of Pink
You Can’t Curry Love
Being 17
I Am Not Your Negro
Brother Outsider
The Skinny
Stud Life
Bayard & Me
Wound
Skins
The Handmaiden
The Gemini
Brother to Brother
Naz & Maalik
Big Eden
The Way He Looks
Cuatro Lunas
Tatuagem
Absència
La Mission
Mosquita y Mari
Soongava: Dance of the Orchids