Open to everyone
Have a story told
You do not have to become a filmmaker to have a story told. Bring it to us, and decide for yourself how close to it you want to stay.
What happens to a story with nowhere to go
The people who hold these stories are not in the rooms where commissioning is decided.
So it gets told by somebody else, from the outside, or it does not get told at all. A community turns up on screen as shorthand, written by people who have never sat in its front rooms. The shorthand becomes what an audience knows.
Screen Sisters is here to shorten that distance. We convene, we teach and we produce. The people whose story it is do the speaking.
You do not have to want a career in film
You do not have to become a filmmaker to have a story told. Wanting the story told, the faith seen as it is actually lived, the misconception answered, and nothing else at all, is a complete and reasonable position. It is the one a great many women arrive with.
You can hand the story over, stay close to it, or learn to make it yourself. All three are normal here, and none is a lesser version of the others.
How close you stay is your decision
Hand it over
You tell it once, agree in writing what may be used and what may not, and a team develops it from there. You are credited, and need not be in the room again.
Stay close to it
You come in as a contributor rather than a maker: consulted on the script, on casting, on what a scene is getting wrong. The points are agreed before anything is shot.
Learn to make it
You do it yourself. The Lab takes an idea through to a screening, and the craft training is there if you want the skill afterwards.
What you can do about it here
Four routes. None needs experience, equipment or a connection to the industry.
Bring it to the Lab
An idea, an outline, or a subject you cannot let go. Developed, costed, shot and screened. Opening, and registering now gets you a round before it is published.
Bring it as an organisation
A mosque, a synagogue, a church, a school or a group with something its people need told. Outreach happens before the writing.
Say what the last one got wrong
Come to a screening and stay for the hour afterwards. Running now. What the room says is what the work gets corrected against.
Learn the craft as well
If you decide you want to make it yourself, the training is fully funded and starts from no experience.
What we will not do
We will not speak for a community. We convene, teach and produce. Nobody is asked to represent a whole community, or to explain their practice to a room.
We will not make a film about a community without that community in it. A project that cannot find the people it is about does not get made.
Consent is written, specific and withdrawable.
Bring it to us
Women of faith — Jewish, Christian and Muslim — and those who share our values.