Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP) began in 2000 with funding from California Arts Council for award-winning San Francisco filmmaker Madeleine Lim to conduct a series of free workshops serving queer women of color emerging media artists. Since then, over 200 new films have been created through our Training Program, single-handedly increasing the number of films by and about queer women of color. These politically insightful, socially relevant, and personally poignant works challenge all forms of racial, political, economic, sexual, and gender stereotyping and offer new dynamic representations of queer women of color.
In 2003, we presented the first free screening of QWOCMAP films, which drew standing-room-only crowds to the SF LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) Community Center. In 2005, our free annual one-night screening expanded into a 2-day Queer Women of Color Film Festival. In 2006, our Film Festival expanded to a 3-day weekend event and clearly outgrew our venue. In 2007, we moved our Film Festival to the Brava Theater, which doubled our seating capacity, yet we still turned away hundreds of people. Our Film Festival consistently attracts capacity crowds through a combination of art and activism, film, and public dialogue. In the process, it educates the larger public about queer women of color and our communities and galvanizes community organizing and movement building. Since 2007, over 50 Community Partners and co-Presenters have reported increased community involvement in their organizations through their partnerships with us.
In addition to our own screenings, QWOCMAP films have also screened at Bay Area and international film festivals around the world, thereby increasing the visibility of queer women of color everywhere. Participants' films have screened at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival, the SF Latino Film Festival, the SF LGBT Film Festival, the Oakland Black LGBT Film Festival, as well as Film Festivals in Los Angeles, Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Toronto, Vancouver, Brazil, Costa Rica, UK, Germany, Italy, South Africa, India, Japan, and New Zealand. Created through our Introductory Workshop, Mónica Enríquez’s film A Journey Home, received the 2004 Lesbian & Gay Jury Award from the SF Latino Film Festival. Completed in our Intermediate workshop, Yun Suh's film City of Borders world premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival where it won a Special Teddy Award. QWOCMAP films are also streamed on the Internet, making them available outside of the traditional film festival circuit.