How my Filmmaking became my Activism
Perhaps it´s the same dilemma that every filmmaker shares when we begin: we are driven by a need to tell stories but we can’t really explain why. One film finally enlightened me.
Your Hair is Cute explores the subtleties of everyday racism through a poetic monologue. It was written as the inner-thought of all the things non-white people may want to say, but keep to themselves in so many countless occasions when faced with lenient racism. I wrote it before the Black Lives Matter movement amplified its voice this year.
Back then, I felt this was my story and my story alone. It wasn’t until I showed it to Débora Santiago – the wonderful actress who performs in the film – that I understood how universal it was. She cried while reading it and confided in me her experiences – many of which were similar to mine; others were too awful to believe. I am light-skinned, which, among other factors, makes me more privileged in comparison to most people of colour.
That was the moment I found my place in the filmmaking community. It marked the beginning of my filmmaking activism. Because here’s the thing I realized that day: the reason I am compelled to tell stories is so that I feel less lonely.
Perhaps this is a good moment to tell you more about myself so that you can understand the importance of this recognition.
I was born in Angola to a white father and a mixed mother. Three years before my birth, the country had won its independence from Portugal, but it soon found itself involved in a bloody civil war. So, on the first day of Spring of 1981, we fled with any belongings that could fit in two suitcases. I was two and a half years old and for the next ten years, I would live in as many different addresses across Portugal, as my parents attempted to re-start their lives from scratch.
There was no money for day-care, so my pre-school days were spent alone in my bedroom, building imaginary worlds around me. I had one friend: Laura. We did the funniest things together. The only problem was, she did not exist.
I was also often the only non-white child wherever I went. My predominantly white social environment never allowed me to discuss the impact that my skin colour and curly hair had on my identity. I was regarded as a ‘deviation’ from the standard white. My blackness became something I thought of negatively. People often laughed at my hair, and on a couple of occasions I was told to 'go back home' by other children. I remember crying at night when I was about nine and begging the world to turn me into a blonde, blue-eyed girl.
So, this is what Débora’s tears meant to me: I was not alone anymore. There was a tribe I could belong to and associate my blackness with in a positive manner.
In my previous career as a journalist (yes, I’ve done that too), I thought my need was to provide a voice to the voiceless. I was on a mission, a force of activism that propelled me to tell the stories no one else cared about. But Your Hair is Cute showed me what all of that meant: it was actually my voice that needed to be heard.
Filmmaking and activism are, of course, not new a new pairing. Cinema is one of the most personal art-forms. Through selected stories, we can share our vision of the world, inspire others, drive them to act. Just think how Brokeback Mountain or Moonlight have challenged our views on homosexuality and male vulnerability. Or how Shame openly discussed sex-addiction. Or how any film Ava DuVernay directs or produces shines a new light onto the hurdles of Black people. I have taken it all in without realizing that this was my path too. In fact, it was the film Nicaragua, about a photojournalist risking his life for the truth, that led me to pursue journalism when I was 13 years old.
None of this sunk in before I made Your Hair is Cute. My work had already been focused on prejudice, justice, and the less privileged. After this film, however, it gained meaning and a stronger direction. My stories are female-centric, address taboos, and shed light into sides of womanhood only a few care to look at: from racism to depression to sexual violence to gender-identity. Hopefully, if I tell them loud enough, others will hear them and, for a moment, will feel that they are not alone anymore.
Your Hair is Cute has not been well received by everyone. It’s a confrontational piece. But perhaps these are the people who are in their own good company already. My voice, my activism is focused elsewhere. That’s my need as a filmmaker, my right as an artist, my place as someone whose blackness has been denied too often and for too long. This is my voice. Will you listen to it?
Follow Cintia Taylor https://www.cintiataylor.com/
