An End of 2017 Update on Feature Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights’ & 2018 Plans for a ‘Queer Women Filmmakers Magazine’
An End of 2017 Update on Feature Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights’
The Feature Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights: From International Film Student to Queer and Undocumented’ is mostly in Post-Production.
Most of the footage has been shot. I’m just starting a rough cut and will still have to put a trailer together, for grant proposals as well.
There are a lot of elements not yet in place as far as post-production is concerned, including graphics and music, even though I have some musicians in place. A narrative has been written for a voice-over, but not yet recorded.
There will be no interviews, “no breaking of the fourth wall” so to speak, 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.
I moved here as a film student after all, to become a filmmaker in Los Angeles, not primarily as an immigrant.
All social media and crowdsourcing will still have to be build up, and fiscal sponsorship will be applied for next year.
All the creative elements are in place in that I’m very familiar with my subject matter and have a lot of ideas around raising awareness for my subject.
(I own all of my equipment and a film production company, and would hope for the film to be festival ready by 2019.)
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’ve 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 got 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 immigration marriage very early on by a fellow film student, who went on to become one of the co-writers (Erik Bergquist) of the first ‘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, (particularly homophobic due to the 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.)
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 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.
So I’ve 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 so in 2017 I have come back 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.
And I ultimately realized that is also what my main audience would consist of, Queer Women Filmmakers, not necessarily immigrants and not solely LGBTQ people, but Queer Women Filmmakers exactly.
2018 Plans for a Nonprofit: ‘Queer Women Filmmakers Magazine’
I plan to finish the Documentary ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights: From International Film Student to Queer and Undocumented’ in 2018, and will put my heart and soul in it as I have done so far, but I have personally also moved on to other creative endeavors, refocussing on things which interest me personally, and which I wrote about before my immigration status became unbearable to the point of having to come out with it publicly.
And so I started an idea for a Magazine; a Printed Publication, titled ‘Queer Women Filmmakers Magazine,’ with an accompanying Media Site, queerwomenfilmmakers.org
The Magazine, ‘Queer Women Filmmakers Magazine,’ will officially launch as a Nonprofit in 2018, and will be published Quarterly starting in 2018, available at limited outlets in Los Angeles in Print format, and sent out as Subscriptions eventually.
I will not be doing most of the writing myself, other than a regular newsletter and an occasional article, and will serve mainly as the magazine’s Creative Director.
The Main Perk of this Magazine is that All Writers, (Guest- and eventual Staff,) Will Get Paid, per Article.
Currently my own Articles are Published on Medium, at medium.com/@gabriellabregman, and on my Medium Publication, (created to launch the magazine,) at medium.com/queerwomenfilmmakersmagazine.
The Magazine will cover the Broad Topics of: Lesbian/ Queer Film, Intersectional Feminism, Female Queer Sexuality, and Gender Identity, and will consist of Longer, In-Depth Content, rather than super brief articles.
It will also be more Philosophical in nature than strictly political, and will encourage Critical Thinking Pieces over the latest news and “click-baity” type of material.
It will feature Lesbian and Queer Film Reviews and Filmmaking Pieces, Interviews and Photo Shoots, Queer Sex Educational Pieces, Lesbian/ Queer Historical Pieces, and Personal Accounts and Testimonials of (Inter-sectioning) Queer Identities and Love.
(It is not a lesbian “things to do in Los Angeles” type of magazine, even though Los Angeles Queer Culture and History would ideally be covered as well, and it is not a dating magazine and site, even though plenty sexual in nature. It is also not a job listing nor film work directory of sorts. I have a Facebook Group for that; ‘Queer Women Filmmakers and Writers - Los Angeles.’)
A MAILING LETTER for ‘Queer Women Filmmakers Magazine’ will be also started in 2018, as well as a “Flexible Goal” Fundraising Campaign.
Furthermore, every Quarterly Printed Publication will be accompanied by a Fundraising & Networking Mixer on the day of publication.
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If you enjoyed this Article, please recommend it by pushing the Clap Button at the bottom of the page, or share in your Social Media, or both.
And please check out my other articles at medium.com/@gabriellabregmanon mainly LGBTQ- and Immigration Issues, and the State of Women and LGBTQ People in Film, and at medium.com/queerwomenfilmmakersmagazine , on Lesbian/Queer Film and Intersectional Feminism as well as Queer Female Sexuality and Gender Identity.
Here are a few titles:
A Few Notes on US Immigration Exclusion Policies Towards Women- and LGBT Immigrants (2014)
A Note on the State of Women in Film (2016)
A Few Notes on LGBTQ Filmmaking (2017)
On ‘Moonlight’ and the Subject of Positive Representation (2017)
The 2016 Valentine’s Day Filmmakers Manifesto (2016)
THE ROOT CAUSE OF MISOGYNY, AND THE NECESSITY OF FREE WILL(Gender Binary System notes, part 1 of 7)
THE MALE AND FEMALE BRAIN, AND THE CAUSE OF TRANSGENDERISM (Gender Binary System notes, part 2 of 7)
THE REASONS I AM NOT TRANSITIONING (Gender Binary System notes, part 3 of 7)
MY PRONOUNS: THEY/THEM/THEIRS (Gender Binary System notes, part 5 of 7)
ON LOOKING ANDROGYNOUS THROUGHOUT MY YOUTH, WHILE ALSO BEING GENDER NONCONFORMING (Gender Binary System notes, part 6 of 7)
Click for Complete List of Articles (2016)
My name is Gabriella Bregman, I am a Hollywood-based writer, filmmaker, producer, currently in post-production of a feature documentary called ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights,’ through my film production company ‘Bregman Films.’
You can find me mostly on Facebook for right now, (facebook.com/gabriellabregman,) where I also maintain a Facebook Group called ‘Queer Women Filmmakers and Writers - Los Angeles’
In September of 2017 I founded a nonprofit organization, ‘Queer Women Filmmakers Magazine,’ a Media Site and Magazine Publication for Queer Women Filmmakers.
In early 2018 article submissions will be accepted for paid publication on the site and in the print version, (quarterly.)
The publication medium.com/queerwomenfilmmakersmagazine exists in conjunction with the Queer Women Filmmakers Magazine website queerwomenfilmmakersmagazine.org
