Sisters in Cinema

Sisters in Cinema supports and champions diverse women and gender nonconforming media makers through a range of programs. Its newly built Media Arts Center is a hub for Chicago and Midwest-based media makers to gather and show their work. As part of the Sundance Institute x Chicago weekend in June, Sisters in Cinema is hosting public and private events to showcase local arts organizations, artists and their work. This X-Grant supports these events, which are being offered in partnership with Full Spectrum Features, Mezcla Media Collective, and OTV.

Sisters in Cinema is a nonprofit organization that works to create opportunities for Black women and gender nonconforming people in media by providing programs designed to educate, raise visibility of, and support and serve communities. It conducts its work both nationally and hyper-locally in Chicago. Its programs include the Sisters in Cinema Documentary Fellowship, which provides financial and creative career-long support to emerging documentary filmmakers and the Sisters in Cinema Newsroom, a paid opportunity for high school students on the South Side of Chicago to learn basic news-gathering skills. With the March 2023 opening of the Sisters in Cinema Media Arts Center in the South Shore neighborhood, the organization realizes its opportunity for creative placemaking and community strengthening through the asset of its physical space, screening room, and gathering place as a resource for community groups, partner nonprofits, youth, and community members of all ages. MacArthur funds support general operations, and the outcome is greater opportunities for Black women and gender non-conforming filmmakers at all career stages to build their skills and build community and a haven in the South Shore community for journalism and creativity via media arts.

Sisters in Cinema is a nonprofit organization that works to create opportunities for Black women and gender nonconforming media makers by providing programs designed to educate, raise visibility, and support and serve communities. Sisters in Cinema’s Documentary Fellows program was launched in 2019 and provides career-long support to Black women and nonbinary documentary filmmakers. This grant supports the travel of these Fellows to attend the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia in August 2022, their first in-person meeting and professional development opportunity.

Sisters in Cinema is a nonprofit organization that works to create opportunities for Black women and gender nonconforming media makers by providing programs designed to educate, raise visibility, and support and serve communities. Its programs include a fellowship for Black women and gender nonconforming documentary filmmakers that provides monetary, professional development, and career support; and a Newsroom program that supports Black young women and gender nonconforming individuals aged 16 to 20 to learn how to produce multimedia journalism projects. Sisters in Cinema is also in the process of opening a Media Arts Center in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago, which will anchor its programming, and provide a gathering space for the local community. This award supports Sisters in Cinema’s general operations, enabling it to continue to develop and implement its programs. The intended outcomes of these activities are more support systems for Black women and gender nonconforming individuals to build careers in nonfiction multimedia storytelling.