Panel
Making Art In The Time of COVID: Shifting Production while Shifting the Narrative
In Collaboration with Q Youth Foundation
Description
This conversation is part of our Community Partner Panel Series. Outfest Fusion believes that the way to break through the issues of access and bias is to center the voices within our community to discuss the issues that they are facing. The panels in this series were created by some of our amazing community partners and will be available for free throughout the Festival. This conversation was curated by Q Youth Foundation!
A presentation discussion with independent storytellers, producers, and creatives during shifting times of COVID-19. A commentary with artists, directors, and producers on the cross section of independent and commercial production in Los Angeles. Q Youth Foundation is dedicated to build LGBTQIA+ community through the arts with its programming. Panelists presented will speak on how drastic the shift became for artists and producers, the dangers of continuing the work but staying compliant and safe during pandemic times.
ONLINE AVAILABLE APRIL 17 – 20
Moderated by:
Ana Bernal
Executive Director & Producer (They/Them)
Ana Bernal is a Gender Non-Conforming artist born and raised in East Los Angeles. Founder of Q Youth Foundation, a non-profit organization using the power of storytelling to connect the LGBTQIA+ community on the Eastside. They earned a master’s degree in Nonprofit Management at Antioch University. Inductee to Honor 41 national list of LGBTQ Latino/a role models for 2015. LGBT Hero Award Winner 2016. Currently, they are a professor in the Critical Race and Gender Studies Department at Humboldt State University.
Participants
Brandon English
(He/Him/His) Filmmaker and Producer
Brandon English is a Queer Filipin x-American Multidisciplinary Artist located in Los Angeles, CA. He produced “Borracho: Spanish for Drunken Bum” at the Holly wood Fringe Festival 2019, where it won an award and had a completely sold-out run. Last year, he starred in “Consent” directed by Andrew Cervantes where the short film won the Grand Jury Award at Outfest Fusion. His film “Bakla” is currently making the film festival circuit. He’s also very excited to co-produce Eastside Queer Stories Radio Plays with his Q Youth Family. For more information, check out brandonenglish.net
Evelyn Martinez
Filmmaker, Writer, Producer
Evelyn Angelica Martinez is a first-gen Latina filmmaker based out of Los Angeles. She is currently a 2021 Project Involve Producing
Fellow and a producer for the upcoming feature films: JOYRIDE and TRANS LOS ANGELES. Her most recent film, JOYRIDE, directed by Edwin Alexis Gómez, premiered at the 2020 PBS Short Film Festival, winning the “Most Popular” Award. Along with producing, Evelyn is in the midst of developing her own feature film, LUZ Y SOLEDAD. Previously she was part of the team at Lawrence Bender Productions (KILL BILL, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), Quebrada Entertainment, and NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers).
Daniel Luna
FUNCTIONAL Series. Writer, Creator, Actor (He/him/his)
Daniel is a proud Colorado native and an even prouder son of immigrant parents. He is the creator and writer of the Latinx/LGBTQ+ led web series, Functional. During his time in LA he has been honored to work with amazing groups like Pound Fit and most recently Q Youth Foundation. His passions include finding stories that represent the queer community, staying active and cheesecake.
Melissa “Mita” Ocampo
(She/Her)
Melissa “Mita” Ocampo is a second-generation Mexican American producer who resides in Los Angeles California. She earned her Bachelors of Arts and Sciences from San Diego State University and holds a Masters in Education with an emphasis in assistive technology tools from Ashford University. With over a decade of experience in Hollywood as a television producer, she has worked with various networks to produce compelling shows ranging from docu-series, talk shows, hidden camera and reality. When she is not producing, Melissa mentors East LA students with organizations OSK and Creating Creators. She wants Latino children to work towards their dreams of success within the entertainment industry and grow the 3.5% current representation for Latin American actors, producers, writers, and directors.
Jean Decay
Video Production, Drag Artist, and Producer
Jean Decay is a drag performer from San Bernardino who currently resides in Los Angeles with her partner, Ben Andrews. Through drag, Jean challenges the nature of storytelling and the ways in which erasure and colonialism play into marginalization. Aside from hosting POCHA, a yearly art event, Jean is currently focusing on streaming and helping sustain the queer community online. She is one of the producers of Queer as Punk and has her own twitch channel with her partner called The Mx. FIles.
Edwin Alexis Gómez
Writer, Director, Producer, and Actor
Edwin Alexis Gómez is a Queer Nicaraguan-American multidisciplinary artist. His body of work blends the resounding beauty/exquisite pain of love and life—it becomes its own mythology and interrogates what we emotionally inherit as well as the patterns that persist/break within bloodlines. He was a 2019 Playwriting Fellow for Lambda Literary Foundation Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices for his play Flower of Anger, a 2020 VONA Voices Fellow in Screenwriting and most recently as a participant of Cine Qua Non Lab’s inaugural Storylines Development Lab for his feature film Castillos Invisibles (Invisible Castles).
His directorial debut Quédate Callado (Stay Silent) won a Grand Jury Award at the 2018 Outfest Fusion Film Festival. His sophomore short film La Sad Boy premiered at the 2019 Outfest Film Festival and will be distributed by ShortsTV later this year. His latest short Joyride premiered at the 2020 PBS Short Film Festival where it won the ‘Most Popular’ award. The film has also went on to win ‘Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast’ at the 2020 Official Latino Film and Arts Festival as well as a LOLA Award at the 2021 Philadelphia Latino Film Festival. Gómez is currently developing his digital series Frenemigas and is bringing his feature film version of Joyride to life.