Training young LGBT people in filmmaking
We did sponsor a training in Documentary making (Rainbow Reels) in 2014 and 2015 in Myanmar. The results, 6 short documetaries, can be seen on our website. For a short 2014 report, click here.
We want to sponsor this project again in Myanmar and also in Cambodia and Vietnam. In all three countries we have good contact with people who can execute the training and with the local LGBTI film festival. The results of the training will be screened there. Please consider a sponsoring. Please don’t hesitate any longer but donate now by clicking here.
More about the training in Myanmar.
In 2014 we granted the budget that Colors Rainbow and ActionAid in Yangon needed to hold the ten-session workshop on documentary making for nine young LGBT people.
We want to give nine young LGBT people the opportunity to follow a ten-day workshop given by a professional NGO in order to enhance their filmmaking skills. Their training will result in short LGBT films or documentaries to be shown at the &PROUD Film Festival in Yangon.
LGBT people in Myanmar are eager to tell their stories and produce documentaries about the LGBT community. While hardly anything has been done in this area, the first initiative in that direction – the 2014 photo competition ‘&PROUD’ that Document Our History Now sponsored – revealed a lot of enthusiasm. But it also showed how few people have actually suitable skills when it comes to filmmaking and photography. With that in mind, Spanish film teacher Dani Fog (who lives and works in Yangon) and Document Our History Now coordinator Robert Witlox jointly developed the idea of offering a series of skill-building workshops for interested young LGBT people in Myanmar.
Through the ‘Turning Tables’ programme, ActionAid will provided a series of ten days of training called the ‘Rainbow Reels Workshop’. ActionAid is an NGO that offers musical and filmmaking training for young people. They already gave the ‘One Woman, One Camera’ workshop on 8 May, the International Day of the Working Woman, in connection with the Yangon Human Rights Film Festival.
The ‘Rainbow Reels Workshop’ consists of ten intensive days from 9am to 8pm. The curriculum will cover the technical aspects of filming with video cameras on the first two days and some theoretical background on storytelling through film on the next two days. Of the final six days, two will be for writing the scenarios and four will be for shooting and editing the stories.
Nine young LGBT people will participate in the project. There will be three groups of three people each, and the idea is to have each group produce a documentary film: one about gays, one about lesbians and one about transgender people. The participants will be recruited by Colors Rainbow, the Myanmar LGBT service and advocacy organisation.
With this project, we can help develop skills among LGBT youth, produce a few short documentary films about LGBT people in Myanmar and create nice footage for social media and the Yangon &PROUD LGBT Film Festival.
We need about EUR 10,000 for one cycle of trainings. You can donate here. Thanks!
You can donate specific for this project. Please be sure to add ‘Training LGBT youth’ with your bank transfer.
(Please note: If we cannot raise enough funding for this idea or if this idea does not make it to production for some other reason, we will be entitled to use your donation for another production.)
