Visiting Filmmakers Series presents: G. Chesler with Connection | Isolation
Monday, February 17, 2025 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM EST
Johnson Center, Cinema
Connection | Isolation:
Witnessing trans community in the COVID-19 pandemic
Connection | Isolation presents eight intimate portraits of trans and post-gender individuals navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst moments of connection and isolation, these participants reveal a deepening awareness of gender, their bodies, and trans community. Created by an all trans and queer crew, this hybrid documentary film interlaces portraits with reenactments, integrating archival material documenting what so many experienced and many still do. Connection | Isolation witnesses the profound ways that, despite physical separation, trans community-building has been centered. This documentary invites viewers to witness the strength of connection as an act of resistance, offering care in the face of crisis, and using reflection as a path toward healing.
Our screening will be followed by a Q&A with Director / Producer G. Chesler (they/them), Professor, Film and Video Studies; Affiliated Faculty, Women and Gender Studies; and G6 Pictures; and film participants Dan Kingsley (he/him), GMU LGBTQ+ Resources Center; and Cole Wolf (they/them), author.
Our discussion will be hosted by Sunny Sellers, GMU LGBTQ+ Resources Center.
See film website.
Director and Producer G. Chesler (they/them) directs, writes, and produces documentary and narrative films addressing gender, racial justice, health, and sexuality through and despite the body. G.’s films have screened at hundreds of festivals, museums, and community spaces globally. This year they were awarded a PGA Create Fellowship for their producing work, a Repro Film / Peace is Loud fellowship for Impact work, and grants from the Portland Events and Film Office and Regional Arts and Culture Council.
Currently, G. is Producer of impact and distribution for Courtney Hermann’s documentary feature Outliers and Outlaws on the migration of hundreds of lesbians to Eugene, Oregon from the 1960s-1980s. G. also produced the ITVS supported feature, Intersex Justice by Aubree Bernier-Clarke on the healing journey of an intersex activist. G. produced the feature documentary, Out in the Night, which won 15 awards and launched the UN’s “Free + Equal” campaign confronting homophobia and transphobia worldwide.
They Associate Produced and co-Edited Zeinabu irene Davis' Spirits of Rebellion: Black Cinema from UCLA, which won the Best Diaspora Documentary at the African Academy Awards and Best Documentary at Blackstar Film Festival.
G's short fiction and documentary films include JAVA, The Pick Up, Bye Bi Love, BeauteouS, hand-some and others. They have won awards from the Chicago International Film Festival, image+nation (Montreal), Cineffable in Paris, Big Muddy, and others, for these films and their feature screenplays.
As an academic for twenty+ years, G. serves as Professor of Film at George Mason University. They are a member of the Documentary Producers' Alliance and DOC-FWD, and a Board Member of Northwest Documentary.
This event is presented by Visiting Filmmakers Series; College of Humanities and Social Sciences; College of Visual and Performing Arts; Film and Video Studies; CVPA's Office of Belonging and Inclusive Engagement; African and African American Studies, English Department; History and Art History; Screen Cultures, University Life; and Women and Gender Studies; and the LGBTQ+ Resources Center.
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For more information: contact film@gmu.edu
