The Film and its Aftermath

LIGHT ON A PATH, FOLLOW is currently in production and is being filmed in August 2018 in a 200-year-old house in Cummington, Massachusetts. The home was formerly owned and occupied by the director's grandparents, aunt and cousins -- and was the final resting place for his grandfather and aunt. Friends of the family have noted the existence of protective spirits of former midwives and other healers in the home. This family home sets the stage for the film, visually meditating on questions of colonial history, place, land, belonging, collaboration and unknown queer and blood ancestry.  

The final cut will completed by December 2018. Upon completion, the film will be submitted to major national and international film festivals and organizations such as Women Make Movies (the distributor of the director's previous work) for further circulation.

During the spring of 2019, Lucia Leandro Gimeno, the director of the QTPOC Birthwerq Project, along with other key collaborators in the project, will host public screenings of the film paired with workshops that gather trans and gender non-conforming people of color interested in or currently doing birthwork -- with the goal of building shared networks, resources and collective skills within queer and trans organizing spaces. A community digital archive and interactive story maps by queer and trans families of color will be collected to be published online.

OUR TEAM

VICK QUEZADA --  Lead Actor, Script Consultant, Character Development 

Vick Quezada is an artist who uses new media, sculpture, performance and photography as vessels to explore themes of colonial history that directly influence indigeneity, diaspora and queer identity. Vick Quezada recently graduated from UMASS with an MFA in Studio Arts. 

LUCIA LEANDRO GIMENO -- Actor, Script Consultant, Character Development 

Lucia Leandro Gimeno is an Afro-Latinx, gender non-conforming femme, counselor/bruja/ organizer based in Seattle. Born and raised by loud mouth working class dykes in Boston, he was taught that love is most definitely a verb. For nearly 20 years they organized with queer, trans and gnc communities of color in NYC (The Audre Lorde Project & FIERCE!). Currently, the Director of The Queer & Trans People Of Color Birthwerq Project, an organization dedicated to mending the disconnect between Trans and Reproductive Justice through birthwerqer trainings and community organizing.

ELLIOT MONTAGUE -- Writer, Director, Producer

Elliot Montague is a transgender experimental and fictional narrative filmmaker. His films explore the nuances of transgender and queer narratives through engagement with familial relationships and rural landscapes. Elliot is a twice recipient of the Princess Grace Award. He was recently the guest director on Rhys Ernst's documentary series, "We've Been Around." Elliot’s work has shown at the Media Arts Festival in Osnabruck, Germany, the DOKMA festival in Maribor, Slovenia, the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, the Paris Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival and the Anthology Film Archives in New York, and the Dashanzi Arts Festival in Beijing, China, among others. Elliot teaches film production at both Amherst and Smith Colleges.           

PATRISSE CULLORS -- Executive Producer

Patrisse Cullors is an artist, organizer, and freedom fighter from Los Angeles, CA. Co-founder of Black Lives Matter and founder of Dignity and Power Now, she is also a performance artist, popular public speaker, and a New York Times bestselling author. She’s received many awards for activism and movement building, including being named by the Los Angeles Times as a Civil Rights Leader for the 21st Century and the Sydney Peace Prize for her work with Black Lives Matter. Patrisse recently completed an international tour for her new book When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. This year Patrisse teamed up with digital media company blackpills to produce RESIST, a docu-series following her Los Angeles grassroots community’s efforts to stop a $3.5 billion jail expansion plan. Patrisse is a Senior Fellow for Maternal Mortality at momsrising.org. 

CHLOE LEE -- Producer

Chloe Lee was born into a bi-racial family in the wilds of a small town in upstate New York, surrounded by farmscape, poverty, and buzzing intolerance.  Visual story and personal experience have always been a means of expression- a way to learn, teach, and understand this world.  Interdisciplinary study at the New School sparked an interest in combining film and sociology, for the telling of stories both remarkable and common.  Chloe has spent a few combined decades in New York and New Orleans, working film jobs in production and art department.  Motherhood and a quick move to rural Vermont with her family have brought her back home.  Chloe finds inspiration working both the creative and the supportive sides of film—humbled by the stories we are here to encounter, the projects we touch, the powerful scope and reach of film.

MAXWELL ADDAE --  1st Assistant Director

Visionary. A Legend. A cinematic Godsend. All words used by Maxwell's mom to describe him as a filmmaker. Merging the vulnerably personal with genre flourishes has been his goal since his time at the University of Texas, Arlington. His short films post undergrad, The Man in the Glass Case, based on Albert Camus’ The Stranger, and Descry, a sci-fi drama, have screened at festivals around the country. Following a small stint touring as a performance artist, which changed how he envisioned movement within film, he is now eager to utilize all of the new tools he’s acquired over the years. Currently in his MFA at AFI, he is being challenged to dissect film and filmmaking in a variety of innovative ways. His thesis film, Outdooring will be his first short in several years.

JANELINE HAYES -- 1st Assistant Director

Janeline Hayes was Born in the Pacific Northwest, hugging trees & eating pancit on the regular. Salmat Nanay! (Thank you Mother.) Moved to Cali to hustle that dream, and climbed those hills. In between I went to the Big Apple & played in the concrete jungle and came back to the waves. I fell in love. I crashed and burned and was resurrected in New Orleans. The city of rebirth. Tru Dat! Trained at the school of HARD KNOCKS & currently enrolled in THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. 

JESSICA BENNETT -- Director of Photography

Jessica Bennett is a New York-based Director of Photography originally from Miami, Florida. Their body of work includes feature and short narrative, documentary, fashion, branded content, music videos, and artist moving image. Their cinematography has been showcased at Sundance, Tribeca FF, LAFF, Atlanta FF, Outfest, and the Whitney Biennial. Clients include Harry Winston, Bobbi Brown, Calvin Klein, Converse, Rolling Stone, VICE HBO, and Netflix. Jessica’s career began in lighting design for theater and performing arts. From there she gained expert experience in lighting and camera movement working as a camera operator, gaffer and key grip alongside master cinematographers such as Lisa Rinzler, Bradford Young ASC, and Michael McDonough ASC. During her nearly 20 year career, she has worked with Spike Lee, Arthur Jafa, Martin Scorsese, Deb Shoval, Andrew Dosunmu, and contemporary artists Leah Devun, Sabisha Friedberg, and My Barbarian.  

REN-YO HWANG -- Costumer Designer, Script Consultant, Researcher 

Ren-yo Hwang is an art school dropout who flirted with fashion and costume design as a teen at Parsons School of Design and Central St. Martins. They interned for designers such as Benjamin Cho and Carlos Campos just following Y2K. Ren-yo now teaches critical race and gender studies at Mount Holyoke College and enjoys phrases such as 'fashion not fascism.' 

PUCK LO -- Sound Mixer

Puck Lo makes films, writes and researches. Her work explores utopian social movements, diaspora, migration, carceral and liberatory spaces, and political memory. She holds a Master's degree from UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and an MFA in Documentary Film from Stanford University. She worked as a staffer for two nationally syndicated radio shows. Puck currently works with the National Bail Fund Network and Research Action Design — a worker-owned collective that teams up with grassroots groups on community-led research, transformative media organizing, technology development and collaborative design projects. She lives between New York City and Joshua Tree, California.

STEPHEN REMINGTON -- Production Designer

Stephen j Remington currently lives and works in New York City. He received his MFA from University of California, San Diego in 2007 and his BA from Hampshire College in 2002. He has been working in television and photo production as an art director and prop stylist for the past 10 years.

GEO WYETH -- Composer (photo credit - Alice O'Malley)

Geo Wyeth works with music, performance, installation, and video. Presented at New Museum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, TENT (Rotterdam), Showroom MAMA (Rotterdam),  MoMA PS1 (Greater New York 2016), LA MoCA, New York Live Arts, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Boston ICA, Kate Werble Gallery, La MaMa Theatre, Human Resources, The Pyramid Club, and Joe’s Pub. They were in residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten for the years 2015-2016 in Amsterdam. Geo is currently based between Amsterdam & Rotterdam, NL and New York City.

ADDITIONAL CREW

Kjerstin Rossi -- 1st Assistant Camera

Sofia Aklog -- 2nd Assistant Camera

Rome Petersson -- Gaffer

Alexa Harris -- Key Grip

Anton Vincente-Kliot -- Grip PA

Dominic Sanchez -- Art Department PA

Divad Durant -- Key PA

Stephanie Jimenez -- Location Manager & Craft Services

Abraham Jimenez -- Art Department PA & Craft Services

Bernadine Mellis -- Script Consultant, Production Assistant

Patricia Montoya -- Script Consultant

Carolyn Montague -- Script Consultant