U People LLC is a production company that produces new media for a new brand of underserved viewers. underserved can be defined by gender, sexuality or race; but we prefer to define it by like minds. We prefer to answer to what defines "us" via the thrills, honesty, wit and ebb and flow of our lives. We have produced several shorts and music videos and the film U People which clearly reflect our mission.
There are upcoming projects which will need both community, organizational and corporate support. We hope what is featured on this page peaks your interest as more will be revealed as these projects come to life.
AZIZAH
- My Powerful Beloved (documentary - work-in-progress)
Producer: Hanifah Walidah
Director: Olive Demetrius
Trailer Below
You can support this project by joining the Sugar
Fund or making a direct donation to Azizah.
NOTE: All donations to Azizah are currently not tax-deductible. Unlike
U People, Azizah is NOT fiscally supported by Women Make Movies.
OVERVIEW
GOALS
Contemporary images of black homosexuality often revolve around the butch-femme
dichotomy, the “down-low” phenomena, and its relation to the
Christian faith. The goal of this project is to explore the lives of Black
Muslim lesbians. We view this project as an opportunity to contest existing
images of black sexuality by providing a more diverse view of the lives
of black lesbians.
This film project will be built from interviews of black lesbians raised
in the Islamic faith. It is shot using an independent lens to allow the
direction to unfold naturally. In doing so, we not only tell the stories
about the impact of faith on their sexuality, but to provide Black lesbians
with a space to begin conversations and to create community around a predominantly
invisible topic. Additionally, this project represents a chance for black
women to lead dialogue around sexuality, and to reject the limited sexual,
racial, and religious spaces created by traditional media.
While our primary goal is to focus on homosexuality and Islam in the lives
of black American women, we are aware of the larger implications. We view
this as an opportunity to expand the images of black America to include
multiple ways of worship, different familial structures, and to diversify
images around women’s sexuality. As a consequence, this project
will provide a larger context for the public to view the Islamic faith
outside of general contemporary images of Farrakhan and the Nation of
Islam where much attention is given to the discipline of men. It is also
important that we provide a platform for Black Muslim women to discuss
Islam in their lives outside of post 9-11 rhetoric that is dominated by
the oppression of Arab women by men.
Central to our project is the investigation of the relationships between
women. What is their relationship to Islam? How do these women come identify
their sexuality and love for women in such a male-dominated, heterosexual
space?
In uncovering the lives of these women, we are illuminating the many shades
of black American life. We hope to find similarities in these stories,
and we hope to find them rich with difference. This project is built on
the belief that we can own being a part of a larger culture and still
express the individuality that comes from our personal experiences. Blackness
represents complexity and cannot be confined to set spaces or reduced
to singular images. As a consequence, we anticipate that this project
will create space to see black America in all its diversity. We expect
the audience will be just as diverse.
PROJECT
STATUS
We have conducted intitial interviews with 3 amazing
women and their stories. But there is a great deal of research and photography
to be done. This project is currently in the developement phase.
SAMPLE
TRAILER
The
trailer below give you an overview of what is possible.