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I want to share a film blog with some very specific goals I like. Reelsistas.com is “dedicated to bridging the gap between the women of color who want to see themselves, their mothers, their sisters, their daughters and their friends reflected on the screen and the women who are working to make it happen. This blog is a celebration of all that it means to be a woman of color in film and television.”

This is so cool because here is a group of people–women of color–who are doing what my colleagues and I are doing in the disability community: looking for accurate, enriching media representations of ourselves and supporting the artists who create them. I’m not saying race and disability are the same thing. But one thing we have in common is that it’s often people from outside our community who make the films about us or starring us. And we are two groups who argue a lot that our media representations are often stereotyped and flat.

As you go through the Reelsistas.com blog posts you’ll also see the same kinds of critiques you find me making on this blog: we need more films that don’t show us as one-dimensional, suffering, inspirational or strong.

I also like the podcast that goes with this blog on blogtalkradio.com called Cinema in Noir. The hosts discuss all types of films there.

And while we’re writing on female filmmakers of color, let me direct your attention to Jade Bryan’s Kickstarter campaign. She had some successful online fundraising to create her original film “The Shattered Mind.” She’s raising money again to get to the Sundance Film Festival to search for investors. Please have a look at her Kickstarter page and video and donate!

“The Shattered Mind” is, in Jade’s words “a psychodrama and surreal story about a hard-of-hearing teenager who juggles family, peer and culture conflicts while in search of her own sexual identity, freedom, and self-realization.” The teenager also has a past traumatic brain injury that plays a role in her deafness in the film. Jade is a Black, Deaf filmmaker who tirelessly addresses the lack of representation of Deaf African-American actors and producers.

Read a little more about Jade’s work in a December 10th post on Sinuous Magazine online and visit her website at www.jadefilm.com.