Special Event! Premiere Screenings with Discussion!

Founded by former Bright Lights programmer Anna Feder and SF IndieFest director Jeff Ross, RESISTANCE OF VISION is a touring festival of social justice themed short films debuting this May in Boston, San Francisco, Wichita and Birmingham.

The screening portion of this event will include Open Captions, with live captioning provided during the post-screening conversation via Communication Access Real-time Translation (CART) and StreamText.

Panelists:

Nicholas McCaskill has spent over a decade advocating for the LGBTQ+ community. Their personal journey, combined with their academic background, has fueled their desire to make meaningful progress. They serve as the president of Trans Resistance MA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for the safety, joy, and liberation of Trans, Queer, Black, Indigenous People of Color (TQBIPOC). This organization is focused on amplifying the voices of those who are often silenced in mainstream conversations about transgender rights and LGBTQ+ issues.

Cynthia Mendes is a poet and a former RI State Senator, and candidate for LT Gov and now a Social Justice Organizer and leader in RI & Mass. 

Adam Nuñez is a student journalist and organizer with local mutual groups for poverty abolition such as Boston Common Coalition for the Homeless and Salem Survival Program in the North Shore area. Beyond advocacy, Nuñez makes Hip-Hop music, and has outside interests in film and history.

Illona Yosefov, chief steward for the Emerson Staff union (SEIU 888), early childhood education advocate, and community organizer.

Programs:

OUR BODIES, OUR CHOICE (Gender Justice): a program dealing with bodily autonomy, including transgender and reproductive healthcare, and other issues affecting individuals based on sex or gender.

THIS IS AN EMERGENCY (Environmental Justice): a program dealing with our relationship to the natural world and efforts to fight laws and institutions that fail to protect our environment and actively contribute to the worsening climate crisis.

FIGHT THE POWER (Racial justice): a program dealing with all forms of racial discrimination, including Indigenous communities around the globe and stories of individuals and organizations fighting for a more just and equitable world.

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? (Labor and Housing Justice): a program dealing with labor concerns, including union organizing and mobilizing for a living wage and housing justice, and protecting the rights and dignity of the unhoused.

Films:

WHEN WE ARRIVE AS FLOWERS
Susan O’Brien, 5 min, USA (OUR BODIES, OUR CHOICE)

When We Arrive as Flowers, follows Diovanna, a New York-based trans Afro-Latinx dancer as she realizes her transfemme identity through a choreographic journey of self-discovery, celebration, and the poetic metaphor of a flower coming into bloom.

 

NOMADS IN THE CITY
Moliana Alpha Muller Mundy, 14 min, Spain (WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?)

Nomads in the City is a short documentary film that gives insight into the Squatter community of modern London. From the perspective of females and queers, we explore how routine movement and evictions affect their day-to-day life, navigating the growing housing crisis and exploring alternative forms of living. Watch the Trailer

 

ANCESTRAL CALL
Sonia Kennebeck, Tetiana Anderson, 16 min, USA
(FIGHT THE POWER)

Danielle Scott, a legally blind Black, Polish-Jewish, and Asian mixed-media artist at the cusp of international fame, risks her own well-being by exposing herself to the intergenerational trauma of the Atlantic Slave Trade. She traces her ancestors’ lives for a greater purpose: creating art that reveals the wretched pain and intense beauty of the era while guiding her audience through an experiential journey toward healing and hope. Watch the Trailer

 

ROLL DOWN THE WINDOW
Lipa Hussain, 10 min, UK (FIGHT THE POWER)

Filmmaker Lipa Hussain interrogates a neurological condition she has experienced since childhood and the parallels it represents with her own religious and racial struggles. Alice In Wonderland syndrome causes the sensation of shrinking and losing bodily control. The film explores the idea of utilizing AIW to confront an enemy from Lipa’s past. Watch the Trailer

 

BLACK TIDE
Kim Yip Tong, 13 min France (THIS IS AN EMERGENCY)

On July 25, 2020, the bulk carrier MV Wakashio ran aground on the reef on the east coast of Mauritius. Twelve days later, oil began to spill, causing the worst ecological disaster ever to occur in the region. Watch the Trailer

 

FEELING THE APOCALYPSE
Chen Sing Yap, 7 min, USA (THIS IS AN EMERGENCY)

A psychotherapist struggling with climate anxiety explores what it means to live in a dying world. Watch the Trailer

 

LOCAL ONE
Stephen Maing, Brett Story, 10 min, USA (WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?)

The Amazon Labor Union made history in 2022 by becoming the first group to successfully unionize an Amazon warehouse in the U.S. Two and a half years later, the company has refused to recognize the union and bargain a contract. To pressure the company to start negotiating, the Amazon Labor Union, now affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, launches a nationwide strike during peak holiday shopping season. From the filmmakers of the Award-winning film Union, Local One takes us into the first days of the strike at two Amazon warehouses in New York City, this time in solidarity with hundreds more workers across the country. Watch the Trailer

 

RESIST: THE RESISTANCE REVIVAL CHORUS
Susan O’Brien, 19 min, USA

In the midst of a country divided, a diverse group of women and non-binary individuals unite through the historic power of music to create a movement ignited by song.

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This event is co-presented with Independent Film Festival Boston, GlobeDocs Film Festival, Boston Underground Film Festival, Wicked Queer Film Festival, Boston Asian American Film Festival, Salem Film Festival, CineFest Latino, Roxbury International Film Festival Lucy Parsons Center, Grrl Haus Cinema, Trans Resistance MA, BAGLY, and Stonewall Liberation Organization. Additional co-presenters include Warm Up Boston, Boylston Student Union, Boston Common Coalition for the Homeless, Sunrise Boston, and Extinction Rebellion Boston.

Total running time is 95 minutes. Tickets are $15 general admission; $13 all discounts; no passes.