This action was not mentioned in the latest letter, which said the deaths of artists, musicians, poets, and journalists in Gaza is 'an attempted annihilation of not just the Palestinian people but Palestinian culture.' It added that 'no artist or cultural worker should be asked to share a platform with this genocidal state.'
At a young age, I learned quickly how oil wealth and power could burn the land while people struggled. I saw heat rise off the streets, the Nile strained, and the air thickened with injustice. In my teenage years, through Aotearoa, being on the edge of the Pacific, I felt the ocean breathing heavy, swallowing the shores of islands that have done the least to cause this harm.
I really wanted to look at the differences between films made by men ... when they're directed by men, it's very taboo, it's sensationalized, it's explicit and it's often violent .... (with) the films made by women, or best case, lesbian women because it's so different, it is like night and day. I'm trying to show that contrast, and that difference.
The urgent work of survival often edges out space for strategic visioning, but if nonprofits and activists are to thrive, they must dream different ways of living.