“Ladies, never let anyone tell you you are past your prime”
                       –Michelle Yeoh

This Woman’s Work, a recent NYTimes Style Magazine interactive, profiles 40 legendary female artists and the younger women who remind them why they make art. The section on The Artist’s Mind asks the question “How does an artist keep making art?” It features artists grappling with notions of ambition, ego, ambivalence and inheritance. Many of the artist pairs spoke about mentorship, and many of the conversations resonated for me in the realm of the vision quest and how we struggle to make meaning – in art, in life, in relationship. At one point, Lana Del Rey, in her section with Joan Baez, says “I think the secret to real success is to make sure you’re always emotionally intact.” I’ve been thinking a lot about what we pass on, how we pass it on – because mentorship is such an important part of the work we do at the Alliance, and one that is often a struggle to embed in the infrastructure of creative practice. Few can make the time or commitment to it. We are all busy, emotionally frayed, and searching.  I am inspired by the words of Hanya Yagahira in the final paragraph of her introduction to This Woman’s Work: 

Artists, all artists, never stop searching for ways to live and ways to be, for lessons from other people’s lives — “Oh,” you think, “if I had her bravery, if I had her tenacity, if I had her industriousness, if I had her lack of self-consciousness, then who might I become? What might I be able to create?” History is a loop, and time is short. We’ll find instruction from whatever source we can, whether looking back or looking forward. The march goes on.

– Hanya Yanagihara

Women Make Movies Latest Releases

Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival May 4-13

I’d like to shine some light this month on our member organizations Women Make Movies and Visual Communications – each of these orgs has artist mentorship built in to their program activities, their missions and their visions for change. We at the Alliance are lucky to be in community with creative warriors and champions whose collective work is a source for the loop of history and demonstrates the cultural power of past and future generations with every screening, every festival, every program, every partnership. Check them out. 

Also check out the just-released highlight reel for our recent Future of Open Media Archives conversation. It’s time to join together – artists, communities and institutions – to protect, honor and free the stories that belong to ALL of us.

In solidarity,

~ Wendy

Notes from the Field

Visual Communications to Host their 39th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Starting May 4th, Visual Communications will kick off their 39th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival with a party at the Japanese American Nation Museum, which will go to into the world premier of Armed With a Camera Volume 2023 which “feature[s] six shortfilms produced by Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander artists, in reflection of VC’s renewed commitment to uplifting Native Hawaiian and Pasifika stories.” This year’s festival honors the legacy of former Visual Communications Executive Director Linda Mabalot 20 years after her passing.

Four Films from Women Make Movies Filmmakers to be Screened at the Tribeca Film Festival
This year, the Tribeca Film Festival lineup will contain four films from Women Make Movies filmmakers, with two films that received the support of their Production Assistance Program having their world premiers at the festival. The two films premiering are Break the Game and Richland. The two other films screening from Women Make Movies filmmakers are Invisible beauty and The Space Race.