The Black Girls Film Camp is a nonprofit organization that hosts an educational film camp every summer for Black teenage girls interested in pursuing filmmaking as a career.
The program operates with the goal of encouraging female Black filmmakers, who are historically underrepresented in the film industry, to tell their authentic stories in a world where that is rarely encouraged.
The program is sponsored by a wide variety of organizations, from the Arts and Science Council to Beats By Dre to TikTok.
The program accepts applications during the school year and 10 girls are selected to direct their own film based on a story proposal that they submit.
The program is completely free for participants, and includes a 12-week-long virtual experience where participants learn about the process of filmmaking. After this experience, participants submit a story idea and 10 of these submissions are selected to be produced.
Participants whose story pitches are selected are provided with everything they need to produce a short (three to six minute) film. They are provided with physical technology for filming and software for editing, along with a personal production team made up of Black women in the film industry.
Along with the resources to produce their film, these 10 girls are also invited to a workshopping event with Black female industry professionals during a weekend-long retreat in Los Angeles.
When the 10 films are finished with their production, they are published and screenings are held across the country. On Feb. 28, Tech’s Women’s Resource Center hosted a screening of the Black Girls Film Camp’s final films in the Student Center’s Cypress Theater.
The coordinator of the Women’s Resource Center, Miranda Garcia, hosted the screening. When discussing the event, Garcia said, “my supervisor sent me an email from the Women’s Resource Center from the director over at Emory; she sits on the board of the Black Girls Film Camp [and] her name is Dr. Chanel Craft Tanner. [She] was singing the praises of the program and it sounded really cool, so we decided that we were going to do it this semester.”
She continued, “we did some research about it and it just sounded like a really important program.”
“I think teenage girls are the future of feminism, so I think that’s something that was important about this program to me,” Garcia said. She believes the work that the program does “particularly for women of color who are extremely underrepresented in the film industry” is very important.
The films screened at the event ranged in their subject matter, from discussing media censorship to the way society views natural hair. When discussing which film was her favorite, Garcia talked about “Mute, [which is] sort of this dystopian future where folks who are dissident to the government can’t speak.”
“I think that that’s a really important feminist message, and that being an ally and standing up for folks who don’t have the same identities as you is one of the most important things about doing this work,” Garcia said.
Garcia continued by saying, “I do appreciate the quality of the films in general; one of the coolest things about the Black Girls Film Camp is that it’s a group of high school students who have access to award-winning filmmakers and really great equipment to make these films, and that’s not an opportunity that a lot of high school girls get to make their vision come true. So, I just think it’s also a really great opportunity to show what folks can do with the resources that are necessary to make something like that happen.”
The Women’s Resource Center regularly holds similar events highlighting intersectional identities. In particular, they coordinate events with the LBGTQIA Resource Center quite frequently. Garcia spoke about the Women’s Resource Center’s coordination with the LGBTQIA Resource Center for events like tabling fairs along with other offices within the Student Diversity Programs, such as the Veterans Resource Center and the Wellness Empowerment Center.
To celebrate Women’s History Month, along with the Center’s 25th anniversary on campus, the Women’s Resource Center is holding special events.
“We’re going to be inviting some alums back to check out the space and talk a little bit about what we’re doing now,” Garcia said.
They will also be having “a keynote speaker on March 30 and [they’ve] got a tabling fair on March 29, which is going to be sort of like a big celebration of all of the different women-focused or gender equity-focused organizations on campus and in the community.”
For more information about future events and other collaborations, visit womenscenter.gatech.edu.