the pathfinders project 2022
The premiere of THE PATHFINDERS PROJECT 2022 was last Sunday and what a great turnout we had.
My name is Magdiel Carmona, I am the co-producer and director for this project.
This project has grown in the year since its inception and we have plans to continue to grow it and the community we reach with it.
But first a little history:
Back in 2021 PrideArts received a grant from The Saints of Chicago to produce new film work. The Covid-19 pandemic was still looming strong and this was an opportunity for our organization to continue to produce work in this new landscape. We wanted to create something that mixed theatrical and technical and stood apart from our current season.
The idea was to interview patrons who were later in years and listen to their stories and what it was like to be LGBT in various times of our history. We got a camera, minimal lighting, and a set of questions and started to venture into this world. The stories wowed us, moved us, and inspired us to continue this journey and listen to more.
The first five Pathfinders were very generous with their time and patient with us as we shaped what this project was going to be. At a point the team felt they understood what this project was and six more leaders were filmed and interviewed.
October 2021 we started to release the interviews three at a time virtually and we noticed there was an audience that was enjoying these stories for their simplicity and candor. That December we presented all 11 interviews in one evening and celebrated the interviewees and the team that produced it. And so THE PATHFINDERS PROJECT was born.
January 2022 we started talking about a second “season” of this project. We had a understanding of what worked, what didn’t, and what parts could be expanded. One thing that really pulled me when we filmed the first season was how 11 different lifetimes didn’t contradict each other, in fact they supported each other. These stories, though different, told a similar larger story of acceptance, of perseverance, endurance, and joy.
The first step in our second iteration was to gather the team that would film this years Pathfinders. Our budget for this was still very minimal and so the idea of inviting filmmaking students to join the project was presented. February 2022 a call went out to universities that we were seeking documentary filmmaking students to join our team and surprisingly we had a great turnout of interest. It was at this point that the project started to shape itself as “inter-generational".” I myself belong to the Millennial generation but these students were Generation Z and we had planned to interview the Baby Boomer Generation and Generation X. We leaned into it.
And so we turned on the cameras again and we started to listen to stories again. With so many creative minds interested and working hard on this project we started to shape this year’s theme; TRANSFORMATION. Our community has many themes we could explore but this theme of TRANSFORMATION was particularly interesting to me. “When does this transformation from ordinary citizen to extraordinary leader happen?”
The final product was the realization of this question. We filmed eight leaders from various parts of Chicago and we talked to them about their moments of transformation. These moments ranged from historical hardships like the AIDS Crisis or Matthew Shepard’s death, and joyful moments like the creation of The Ad Hoc Committee of Proud Black Lesbians and Gays. We have been inspired again, we were moved, and we couldn’t help but be proud of the community in which we reside.
After a year of work, we presented the second iteration of this project to our supporters.
I am very proud of the work this team put into this project. We worked with limited resources and mainly on a volunteer basis. The final product of your support and belief in us as creative artists. I cannot say thank you enough to everyone involved in the project but I will continue to try.
Thank you to Johnathan Rodriguez, Cee Pham, Isaac Santiago, Phillip Zhao, and Javon Hardy. Thank you to Lisa Marie Pickens, Lisa Isadora Cruz, Modesto Valle, Angela Barnes, William Gordon, Shelton Watson, Kelly Rice, and John Adewaye. Thank you to our past Pathfinders, Donald Bell and Stefanie Clark, for nominating some members of the new class. Thank you to The Center on Halsted, The Gerbert Hart Archives, Semilla’s Latin Kitchen (Rogers Park), and PrideArts. Thank you to our supporters. Thank you to our communities.
If you missed the presentation, we are planning on having a virtual release in the coming weeks.
Stay tuned.
-Magdiel Carmona (Producer, Director)
