Baby Makes Me: A film about non-traditonal motherhood

Ok,

Hello Women and Babies and Others,    

Many of you have been emailing to ask if I'm knocked up yet. Not quite but I am still trying. I've had home inseminations, and visited orphanages, and signed up with various lists, and looked into some potential possibilities. I am still looking for donors who want to do the long haul with a woman who will not have sex. Sperm is hard to acquire for a lesbian with limited resources.

Though the bun is not yet in the oven, the film, Baby Makes Me, is pushing on. We have been interviewing and networking and trying our best to create work that will represent the voices of women who have been missing from the larger dialogue about contemporary motherhood. Six weeks ago, Tiona and I were in South Africa talking to the most amazing women. Learning how things are done waay down on the tip of our oldest continent.

We have also been talking to women on this continent of America, listening, taking notes and trying our best to be good vessels for the stories that live here. We have voices from Jamaica. And some from across other seas.

And we have been documenting my own struggle in my own small world.

Some of that will be shown in the earliest clips of the documentary. We would love it if you would come sit with us, talk with us, eat and drink some wine, some juice, some stories- and then, share with us what you think, what you feel, what you want to see of yourselves on screen.


Tiona lives in Philly, and we have so many of you in that area who have great stories, and great voices to tell them. So we are doing our first fundraiser and feeler in your neighborhood. We would be love if you would come and bring your babies and your sisters and be with us on Saturday.

Please forward and post to your facebook pages, and call friends you think would be interested in coming, or being a part of this amazing project.


With love and the courage to stand in the face of all that would have us disappear,
staceyann


'Baby Makes Me: A Film About Non-Traditional Motherhood'

Hosted By Staceyann Chin Poet and Author of ‘The Other Side Of Paradise’
&
Philadelphia Filmmaker Tiona.M. ‘black./womyn.:conversations…’ www.blackwomynfilm.com

WHEN: Saturday June 12, 2010
TIME: 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.

LOCATION: Bahdeebahdu
1522 North American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122

$5 (Refreshments & Libations Included)
*Portion of the proceeds will benefit the 2010 Mountain Meadows Summer Camp Program

Staceyann & Tiona will have a limited amount previous works for purchase at the venue as well.

CONTACT: babymakesme@gmail.com for press and additional info.

Follow us on Twitter: @babymakesme
Join the Facebook Page: Baby Makes Me
www.babymakesme.com

Join us for The Philadelphia Fundraiser for Baby Makes Me: A Film About Non-Traditional Motherhood!

Poet/Author Staceyann Chin & Philadelphia Filmmaker Tiona.M. discuss the new film project that they have partnered up to produce. Staceyann and Tiona will also preview never-before-seen footage of the film and share what they have experienced so far in their journey to create this project. Come and preview exclusive the first clips of the film and share your own story about Motherhood!

Questionnaires/applications to be a part of the film will be available at the fundraiser.


Information about the Mountain Meadow’s Summer Camp Program will be available for LGBT parents.

About Mountain Meadows:
www.mountainmeadows.com

Mountain Meadow's Summer Camp program is for youth 9-16 from LGBTQ and other non-traditional families, as well as for youth who are LGBTQ or questioning. We're from all over the United States! We canoe, swim, talk about LGBTQ issues and our families, learn hip hop and step, put on a talent show, go to a dance, and meet fun, and sometime famous, guests. Find out more!


About the Film:

The project actually began when Staceyann approached Tiona to document a pregnancy she wasn't quite sure would be forthcoming. Staceyann, who really wanted to get pregnant, was looking for resources and found there really weren’t any. So it was decided that documenting her process journey toward motherhood would increase the resources available to the women who will decide to do this after her. After preliminary interviews, it was decided that the project would be better served it were approached as a general exploration of single motherhood, viewed through the lenses of Staceyann’s experiences, fears, and hopes. The vision then widened to include women who feel they exist outside of the norm with respect to parenthood. Our mission is to, demystify and provide an honest examination of the process of single women and lesbians, particularly those of color, single heterosexual women, and other women who do not fall into the expected category of women who are partnered to men. Th
e mission with the film is to put real/ordinary faces to the sensationalized assumptions of motherhood and to provide a visual representation to the many questions and criticisms surrounding women, particularly single and lesbian mothers of color in contemporary times.



Baby Makes Me will be of global importance to women who have struggled with the issue of parenting outside of the Victorian age of marriage and nuclear families. Baby Makes Me will be an examination of Staceyann’s, and other Black lesbians’ and single womens’ journey into motherhood, with specific emphasis on lesbians who share parts of her identity; those who reside in Brooklyn NY, single women and lesbians who are of African descent, of Caribbean descent, women who are working artists, women of color, etc. On the national level we intend to explore location, with respect to neighborhood or region, and how that may or may not affect single and/or lesbian motherhood. We will look at various state laws and probe the backgrounds of the mothers involved. In the international arena we will have the chance to explore motherhood as it relates to various (including but not limited to South African, Jamaican, American) cultures. We hope to explore the differences and similarities with respect to motherhood between communities in the new global neighborhood of the 21st Century.