Thank you for supporting this project. The vision for the Fire & Flood film began almost four years ago, during my experience in the Tubbs fire in Sonoma County, California in Fall 2017, but it was not until March 4, 2019 that I launched the fundraiser that brought this film to life. I am grateful to all of you have been supporting this project since I first launched the fundraiser, as well as to those of you who are just now joining this community, pooling your resources together with others so that this project can flourish. If you're just learning about Fire & Flood, you can still see all of the updates and community messages from the beginning of this project at gofundme.com/firefloodfilm.
Since then, the sneak-peak of the film has been shown at over two dozen public events, including a multi-site collaboration with the American Library Association's Resilient Communities grant. Thank you to everyone who has screened the film or shared it with others. The positive reception to this draft by a first-time filmmaker has stunned me and pushes me onwards.
I had intended to finish this project in fall 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of wrapping up the project, I ended up recording over 30 more hours of interviews and collaborative feedback sessions about queer resilience through the pandemic, police violence, and politics of 2020 with some of the collaborators from the initial interviews for the film. After the exhaustion of that year and teaching in-person through the pandemic, I am now finally feeling the capacity to return to these two years of interviews and media collaborations, and working on the next draft.
Please continue to share the word about this project. It is through this fundraiser and your sneak-peek screenings that I have been able to pay collaborators for all of their work on captions, music, editing, transcripts, and more. The other half has provided mutual aid flow funds to support the queer resilience of collaborators in this film. So many thanks.
I will continue to offer the 2019 sneak-peek for screenings until the next version is available (eta, Spring 2022). To read more and find out how to host a screening, please head over to the queer ecojustice project website: www.queerecoproject.org.
Last but not least, I am grateful to Out 4 Sustainability for fiscally sponsoring this film. After years of organizing LGBTQ people in the sustainability movement, Out4S is now in a process of shifting their mission towards environmental and social justice, and it has been an honor to be part of the process. Please check out their work at out4s.org.
I will never say it enough - thank you. I am grateful to you. Thank you for your support and for all that you do in pursuit of ecojustice and collective liberation.
