Greetings from Yelamu, the traditional unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people, which is known as San Francisco.
This naming is crucial. The hemisphere that QWOCMAP inhabits, the entire Americas, from Canada to Chile, was founded on anti-Native and anti-Black racist violence, from dispossession and enslavement to policing and incarceration, that affects our safety to this very day.
QWOCMAP works to end oppression and advance abolition. We use film as protest, as respite, as imagination for a just future. This embodiment of art and culture is grounded in the spiritual and ethical aspects of Black and Indigenous resistance, and that of all people of color.
We welcome you to our 16th annual San Francisco International Queer Women of Color Film Festival. Our Festival Focus SafeSpace/NoPlace digs up the roots of injustice, showing how it seeds discourse and proliferates violence against our oppressed communities. From gentrification and displacement to the global pandemic, from the street to our homes, the safety of our communities is crucial to the new world we all need.
We want the films and discussions to connect us, even as we are physically distant from each other. We want to spark joy for you and galvanize your courage to act. When we act, we learn and change. And action, making the road as we walk it, creates hope.
We cherish working in solidarity with you to create justice.
With light, love, and liberation,
Alisha, Astrid, Cassandra, Christina, Kebo, Leis, Lynn, Mad, Raquel, Yara