We at Kartemquin Films stand in solidarity with Black communities against the unchecked brutality, state-sanctioned violence, and pernicious racist ideology alive deep in the soul of this nation.
We grieve for the loss of Black lives taken — for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Reed, Tony McDade, Laquan McDonald, Rekia Boyd and the countless others who had no one to witness their end. We are angry at the continued investment in police forces riddled with white supremacy and disinvestment in communities of color.
We know that the tool we rely most on — the camera — has laid bare the hate and violence that BIPOC communities have faced throughout time. It is not enough to say that we stand against racism. We must use our feet to move against it, in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and those protesting. This can only happen if we start moving.
We acknowledge that any hope for healing demands that White centers of power acknowledge their own complicity in a system that has historically benefitted them. While Kartemquin’s lens has often been trained on exposing injustices, it has not always been reflexive and committed to equity in examining who gets to tell these stories.
ALSO READ: IATSE stands in solidarity with Black community
We will re-examine and increase our support for Black and Brown filmmakers to share their vital perspectives on our society’s urgent challenges, especially the complex narratives of their own communities. Black protesters, citizen journalists, documentary filmmakers and on-the-ground reporters are risking their lives on the frontlines.
As a legacy White organization striving to better serve BIPOC makers, we at Kartemquin must work to disrupt and dismantle a media system that too often makes safe and narrow choices that are continuations of implicit and explicit racism. This work starts within our own organization, with a commitment to anti-racism practice across all of KTQ.
