As the 50th anniversary of Stonewall approaches, filmmaker Dr. Kami Chisholm (@KamiChisholmFilms) looks back at the origins of Pride and questions the influence of corporate sponsorships, police, and attempts to use pro-LGBT rights discourses to cover up crimes against humanity.
Dr. Kami Chisholm is a queer, disabled, activist filmmaker and arts curator whose work focuses on dismantling white supremacy, ending settler colonialism, and the quest for justice for those commonly denied access to the means to live and thrive. Chisholm has been making films for more than 20 years, since beginning their BA in Film Production and English from Loyola Marymount University. They also hold a PhD in History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MFA in Film Production from York University. Their most recently completed documentary, Pride Denied (released in 2016 and distributed by Media Education Foundation and Vtape), explores topics such as homonationalism, corporatization, and pinkwashing in the context of the 2014 World Pride festival in Toronto. They are currently working on the mid-length documentary Citizen - a documentary about citizenship, borders, colonization, and migrant justice, funded in part by the Osgoode Law School Artist Residency - as well as the feature documentary, A Brief History of Whiteness.
