2018 Update on Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights’
(An LGBTQ US Immigration Exclusion-Policy Documentary and Personal Story)
‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights: From International Film Student to Queer and Undocumented’ is a Personal and Social Issues Documentary about a (trans-masculine) gender nonconforming lesbian, who moved from the Netherlands to Los Angeles in the early 1990s, legally on a Student Visa, by enrolling in Film School, to be a filmmaker in the US. (The subject’s pronouns are: they/them/theirs.)
They become “undocumented,” or “Out-Of-Status,” as a victim of DOMA, (Defense Of Marriage Act of 1996,) as punishment by the US immigration system, which only allows US Citizenship through opposite-sex marriage, which they in turn use to make a film about, to prove their point about having the same individual rights as anyone else, to show the world their POV, to show they have a right to be who they are and get what they want in a time in LGBTQ history where they are rendered invisible, and so without rights.
‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights’ is part Social Justice documentary, part “Experimental” documentary. “A Portrait of an Artist, at Work,” as the subject of the film moved to Los Angeles, (in 1992 at age 19,) as an International Film Student from the Netherlands, to be a filmmaker in the US, and “An Ode to LA, and Independent Filmmaking.”
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Bregman Films is currently in Production of Feature Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights: From International Film Student to Queer and Undocumented’ (2018.)
About half of the footage has been shot, and all archival documents and pictures are in place.
A narrative has been written for the documentary, and will be used for a voice-over, (to be recorded soon.)
A trailer will be cut ASAP.
The Documentary Grant Proposal is currently being put together.
Fiscal Sponsorship will be applied for in 2019, (FIND and IDA.)
All the creative elements are in place, and I am very familiar with my subject matter and have a lot of ideas around raising awareness for my subject.
I own all of the film equipment to be used for this documentary as well as film production company Bregman Films, and hope for the feature-length film to be festival-ready by 2020.
My creative partner also works on the documentary’s soundtrack.
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A Few Notes.
I don’t find it sufficient to present “just another story” of undocumented immigration and have found, in dealing with my own situation, all the holes in the US immigration system itself and actually have real solutions to offer.
It took me almost 5 years of research, on my own and in less than ideal circumstances, to figure this system out.
Most of the story focusses on my personal life, the good and the bad, but it will also necessarily contain legal facts regarding the US immigration system, the problem with it and the fair solution for it.
I am also structuring my both personal and political story in a 3-Act Structure, excluding any talking heads approach in favor of a Voice-Over narrative.
(I went to Film School in Los Angeles from 1992 through 1994, and come from a background of narrative storytelling, both screenplays and novels, before switching to documentary out of necessity in 2013.)
I will use a combination of newly shot footage, a lot of driving around in LA in a ’72 Chevy, as well as personal archival footage, old video, pictures, documents, but also more general footage, of protests I attended, and news footage, etc. under the Fair Use Act.
The film will also contain simple graphics, (to explain a few things about the US immigration system,) and some animation, (mainly for more graphic scenes, homelessness, violence, sex, for good and for bad, as well as drugs, which cannot be replicated any other way anymore.)
There will be no interviews, and the film will feel much more like a “portrait of an artist,” and an “ode to Los Angeles,” the city I simultaneously love and hate, than a real immigration-focused documentary.
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The Backstory on the Documentary:
The story of a young, queer (trans-masculine, gender nonconforming lesbian) artist moving to Los Angeles from the Netherlands in the early 1990s to study film and be a filmmaker, only to be nearly annihilated by misogynist men in Hollywood as well as the US immigration system, with its’ LGBTQ exclusion policy discrimination in the form of the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA,) has been with me in one form or another as far back as 1996, when DOMA first went into effect.
I have always been into personal filmmaking, as well as journal writing, and moved from the Netherlands to the US myself in 1992 as a young, queer artist, legally on a 5-year Student Visa, to study film in Los Angeles and with intentions of becoming a filmmaker here.
(I received my Student Visa after acceptance into the Film Program at Los Angeles City College, with intentions to transfer to a 4-year university to get an MFA in Film, and after paying the hefty out-of-state tuition and all the fees and tests that came with moving legally, English tests, medical, criminal background, etc.)
I was coerced into an opposite-sex immigration marriage very early on by a fellow film student, who went on to become one of the co-writers (Erik Bergquist) of the original ‘Fast and the Furious’ in 2001.
We were married in 1992 and divorced in 1994, after which I came out as a lesbian immediately, something I always knew and had lived according to but had no words for expressing, having grown up in the homophobic 80s, in the Netherlands, (very liberal but particularly homophobic in the 1980s due to the international AIDS crisis.)
US immigration law, as it stands, (and unlike the European, Canadian and Australian immigration systems, who have a more just merit system in place, focussing on individual merit instead of bloodline and childbirth, which always diminishes women as individuals in the process,) is primarily a family law immigration system, prioritizing spouses of US Citizens over all Work Visa holders.
(The US system, not only immigration, but all political systems, value women for their fertility, not their intelligence. Under the European system women can immigrate based on their intelligence, not based on if they want to marry Dutch people and how many babies they are willing to create with Dutch people, etc., as is the case here in the US.)
Work Visas hardly ever lead to US Citizenship through employer based sponsorship, as it isn’t worth the legal trouble and finances for the employer, and as a result Work Visa holders often end up marrying US Citizens, usually after most visa extensions have been exhausted.
And so LGBTQ immigrants were prior to 2015 in the US always excluded from marrying and so from being sponsored by American spouses for US Citizenship.
Now I’m really a romantic at heart and I would love to be married to a woman at some point in my life, especially after having been married to men twice, but I moved to the US as an individual, with potential and ambition and passion, and not as the relative of a US Citizen, my fate to live and work in the US in their hands.
(And I personally advocate for a merit-based system, a point-based system not unlike in Europe, and which truly coincides with the US Constitutional principles of individual rights.)
I moved here to study film and to become a filmmaker, even if I ultimately came to understand my need to be a filmmaker and in Los Angeles specifically, that is with a chance of real and international success, sprang forth from an erased and denied queer identity by society at large.
I have realized my need for fame was really a need for visibility and validity and my need for money the need to be able to afford to live at all, being queer.
I also realized that at the heart of my film misogyny is the theme that unites the story of inter-sectioning identities, always reinforcing each other and working against each other, in the struggle to live freely and love fully. It is also misogyny that prevents women to live their lives as individuals, placing value in their intelligence, over their bodies, and their ability to procreate.
And in 2017 I came full circle to my original concept, the story of a young, queer (trans-masculine, gender nonconforming lesbian) artist moving to Los Angeles from the Netherlands in the early 1990s to study film and be a filmmaker, only to be nearly annihilated by misogynist men in Hollywood as well as the US immigration system, with its’ LGBTQ exclusion policy discrimination in the form of the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA,) and becomes a person who survives and overcomes this.
This film, while educating the American public about LGBTQ US Immigration Exclusion-Policy history, including my personal story with US immigration under DOMA, is ultimately for Queer Women Filmmakers, (which is its’ main and target audience.)
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FILM BIO:
My filmmaking experience includes Film School (1992–1994,) Film Program at Los Angeles City College, (as International Film Student from the Netherlands paying out-of-state tuition.)
I worked at the art house movie theater chain The Laemmle Theatres throughout the 1990s.
I Interned and Volunteered at various independent film production companies (including IFC’s Next Wave Films, Samuel Goldwyn Films and Miramax Films,) and film organization Film Independent and their Spirit Awards and LA Film Festival in the early 2000s.
In 2001 I produced a very well received John Cassavetes Film Retrospective at the Laemmle Theatres, titled ‘Gena and John: A Cassavetes Retrospective,’ and including the definite documentary on Cassavetes, Charles Kiselyak’s ‘A Constant Forge: The Life and Art of John Cassavetes.’
The 3-months film retrospective showcased the complete directing work of my personal film inspiration John Cassavetes, generally considered “the godfather of American independent filmmaking,” and enjoyed the participation of Cassavetes’ main cast and crew.
Lastly, in my own filmmaking experience, I’ve been writing and documenting my own story as a Queer Female Filmmaker in Los Angeles and am in production of the Feature Documentary about LGBTQ US-Immigration and DOMA Immigration-Exclusion Policy, titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights.’
I got my start in the US as an International Film Student from the Netherlands and faced enormous hardship in the anti-LGBTQ US Immigration system.
I identify as a Gender Nonconforming Lesbian, “non-op” Trans-Masculine, Bi-Racial, from the Netherlands, and am a Los Angeles-based Writer, Filmmaker and Producer.
Bregman Films is currently in Production of Feature Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights.’
The 2001 John Cassavetes Film Retrospective ‘Gena and John: A Cassavetes Retrospective’ at the Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles is a Bregman Films Production.
I am also the Founder of Nonprofit Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles.
In 2018 I am publishing my story and essays in a book, titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights & Other Essays.’
My pronouns are: they/them/theirs.
Film Organization QUEER FEMALE FILMMAKERS LOS ANGELES
A Media Site & LA Film Mixers (2018)
The Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles — A Media Site & LA Film Mixers consists of Three Components; a Media Site featuring Original Short Video Content about Queer Female Filmmaking and Identity; Film Criticism as Written Articles; and Film Mixers in physical spaces in Los Angeles.
A VIDEO to launch Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles will be up in the Fall. Also, this project comes with an actual MANIFESTO, which I will also explain in the Video.
Regarding the (4-POINT) MANIFESTO, anyone familiar with the many filmmaking movements throughout film history, (Italian Neo-Realism, French New Wave, the New Hollywood of the 1970s, the New Queer Cinema and Independent Film Movement of the 1990s and Dogma ’95, to name a few,) would know I specifically mean with this that I really want to go back to real independent filmmaking, as in very low-budget, very small crews, simple production values, and a serious focus on human dilemmas over filmmaking techniques and genres, etc.
And I have absolutely no personal interest in high concept or super hero type of filmmaking. I’m really thinking on being both highly creative and extremely pragmatic as a minority in the film industry.
I also want to give space on the Media Site for Queer Female Film Criticism, since there’s a dire need for Female Film Critics in general, and Queer Female Film Critics specifically.
I think we need our own people, Queer Female Film Critics, and really Filmmakers themselves, to analyze our own stories, with a Queer Female Gaze, rather than let mainstream critics misinterpret our stories and give mediocre reviews based on that.
All I will say about Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles for now is that I am taking it back to true independent filmmaking, which in my opinion rightfully belongs to minorities, not only because our stories are far better than mainstream studio fare but because we have been systematically shut out of mainstream institutions and from mainstream legal and financial resources.
Minorities are by nature and by necessity the true independent artists and always have been, just like mainstream entertainment has traditionally been the arena of the privileged masses.
I believe in nothing less than connecting, creating and fostering a QUEER FEMALE FILM MOVEMENT, and will publish the Film Organization’s MANIFESTO shortly.
The idea behind the Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles — A Media Site & LA Film Mixers came from a personal need for Queer Female Filmmaking Community, while working on my Feature Documentary about LGBTQ Immigration-Exclusion Policy ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights.’
I am the Founder of Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles, and hope to raise funds through Crowd-Funding Campaigns and Grants for the Nonprofit.
I run these Two Projects, my Feature Documentary and the Film Organization, from a Film Production Office in Hollywood, and own all the Film Equipment necessary for these projects.
The Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles is actively looking for people who openly identify as Queer Women, (Gender Nonconforming and Trans-Inclusive, of All Races and Ethnicities,) who are Filmmakers in Los Angeles, both Established and Emerging Filmmakers, to give input on queer female independent filmmaking and identity, through original short video content, video essays, interviews, articles, on the Media Site, and attend film discussions over coffee or lunch, drinks, dinner, which I refer to as LA Film Mixers.
A lot of media sites focus on Millennials and Generations after, but as a Gen-X-er myself, (kind of the last of the last pre-internet generations,) I want to include all of our voices, so this is Intergenerational as well.
Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles is a 501 (c)(3) Nonprofit Arts Organization and will be Membership-Based.
The Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles has received several Partnership Offers, and will also have a Magazine Publication on Medium through the Medium Partnership Program.
To Follow:
FILM MOVEMENT Through 4-POINT FILMMAKING MANIFESTO
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My name is Gabriella Bregman, I am a Hollywood-based Writer, Filmmaker and Producer, currently in production of a Feature Documentary about LGBTQ US-Immigration Exclusion-Policy, including my personal story of US immigration discrimination during DOMA, (Defense Of Marriage Act, of 1996–2015,) titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights,’ through my film production company Bregman Films.
The 2001 John Cassavetes Film Retrospective ‘Gena and John: A Cassavetes Retrospective’ at the Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles is a Bregman Films Production.
I am also the Founder of a Nonprofit Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles — A Media Site & LA Film Mixers (2018.)
In 2018 I am publishing my story and essays in a book, titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights & Other Essays.’
I identify as a Gender Nonconforming Lesbian, “non-op” Trans-Masculine, and Bi-Racial, from the Netherlands, Los Angeles-based.
My pronouns are: they/them/theirs.
Please check out my other articles on LGBTQ- and Immigration Issues, the State of Women and LGBTQ People in Film, and Lesbian/Queer Film as well as Queer Female Sexuality and Gender Identity at medium.com/@gabriellabregman
A few titles:
Resume/FILM BIO: Gabriella Bregman (2018) (2018)
2018 Update on Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights’ (2018)
A Note on the State of Women in Film (2016)
A Few Notes On LGBTQ Filmmaking (2017)
Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 1 of 5) (2018)
John Cassavetes Film Retrospective (2001) (2018)
On ‘Moonlight’ and the Subject of Positive Representation (2017)
My 2018 Oscar Pick for Best Picture (2018)
In Defense of Rationality (2018)
In Defense of Individual Rights (2018)
A Few Notes on US Immigration Exclusion Policies Towards Women- and LGBTQ Immigrants (2014)
The Root Cause Of Misogyny, And The Necessity Of Free Will (Gender Binary System notes, part 1 of 7) (2016)
The Male And Female Brain, And The “Cause” Of Transgenderism (Gender Binary System notes, part 2 of 7) (2016)
The Gender-Binary System Was Created For Population Control And Slavery, Including Sex Slavery (Gender Binary System notes, part 7 of 7)
All Articles Written by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Pictures Owned by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Rights Reserved (2018)
