QWOCMAP 2023

The Queer Women of Color Film Festival takes place in San Francisco each year, shortly before Frameline. This year, the 19th annual QWOCFF was June 9, 10, and 11, at the theater in the Presidio (not to be confused with the Presidio Theatre on Chestnut Street). There were two feature-length films, plus two longer short films and three programs of short films.

If you missed it, though, do not despair! QWOCMAP is offering a free streaming encore presentation of most of this year’s festival, available on their website from June 23 to June 30, 2023, anywhere in the world. All films are open captioned (fully subtitled), with audio description available, as part of QWOCMAP’s ongoing commitment to maximum accessibility.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Ginger & Honey Milk by Mika Imai is the story of two deaf Japanese university students involved in a bit of a love quadrilateral.

Unseen by Set Hernández is a documentary about Pedro, a blind undocumented immigrant trying to complete his college degree and get a job providing mental health care in his community. (Unfortunately, this film is not available in the streaming encore.)

The program Mycelial Care consists of two documentaries. Historias de Cultura: Oaxaca en Santa Cruz (Comida) by Megan Martinez Goltz. For Indigenous elders, Oaxacan traditions nourish and support their community to heal. Powerlands by Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso. A young Diné (Navajo) filmmaker investigates the displacement of Indigenous people and the devastation of the environment caused by the same chemical companies that have exploited the land where she was born. On this personal and political journey, she learns from the Indigenous activists in the La Guajira region in rural Colombia, the Tampakan region of the Philippine island of Mindanao, the Tehuantepec Isthmus in far southern Mexico, and the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests at Standing Rock.

The first shorts program, Magic at the Root, consists of 11 short films across a broad range of subjects and styles. I was particularly impressed by “Good Listener” by Judy Tsegaye, the story of a black person who has had enough of one-sided conversations that leech energy, and “Para Vivir” by Jackelyn Santiago, a visual love letter for queer and lesbian women of color. The other nine shorts were all worth seeing.

The second shorts program, Gathering Sweetness, focuses on clusters of intimacy and loving connection, from abundant queer Black love intertwined with grief, to a celestial romance and Latinx and South Asian women coming of age. “Sia” by Ashlei Shyne looks at the impact of the global pandemic on a queer Black couple in Los Angeles. “Potion 999” (a reference to “Love Potion #9”) by Tierra Frost tells the story of a queer Black woman who disperses spores of revenge in the most unlikely way. All 7 shorts are well worth seeing.

The final shorts program, Wind Sown Memory, focuses on the web of kinship and community and the ways we survive with sweetness and choose to love ourselves and each other. “Mia’s Mission” by Jireh Deng is a documentary about a Japanese transgender woman, born in one of the internment camps for Japanese Americans in World War II, who became an attorney and now supports queer and people of color communities in Los Angeles. “Golden Voice” by Mars Verrone is a documentary about a transgender man who returns to a village where a queer and trans community bloomed during the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s. All eight shorts are well done and worth your time.