The Carla 2020 Value Statement

Written by Themba Bhebhe, Johanna Koljonen, Wendy Mitchell, Melissa Silverstein and Victoria Thomas.

As members of the global film and tv community working towards a more inclusive and just world, we share this statement as an affirmation of the values we strive for:

We are committed to an intersectional framework in our fight for gender equality in all facets of life and work.

We believe that Black Lives Matter.
We believe that LGBTQIA rights are human rights.
We believe in the social model of disability, meaning that the barriers to inclusion of disabled people are social, environmental and economic.
We will support and amplify the voices of artists that are undervalued, marginalized or suppressed by politics or other circumstances.

For those of us who hail from colonizing nations, we acknowledge that our ancestors claimed and plundered the land of Indigenous peoples. We acknowledge that the wealth of wealthy nations was built on the exploitation of natural resources and indifference to the lives and suffering of humans perceived as other.

We acknowledge that the cultural establishments of which we are part, which fund our work, or control visibility and status, are still only at the start of a transformation towards true representation. We are committed to be part of that transformation, and we are grateful for this chance to practice these values.

We acknowledge that this work requires practice, resources, self-criticism, and a real willingness to share power. We acknowledge that we all come with biases; that the world we live in is racist; sexist; ableist; homophobic; anti-semitic, classist, casteist and colorist, and that it privileges those from the Global North. As such, we acknowledge that we are all works in progress and that we will endeavor to do the necessary work to overcome and eliminate our internalized prejudices.
We will call out prejudice when we recognize it. When we ourselves make mistakes and are corrected, we will say “thank you”, because when someone draws a boundary or is willing to teach us, they are giving us a gift of trust.
We remind ourselves to listen with an open mind and a generous spirit to each other as we share knowledge, experiences, lessons, sorrows, and joys.

We will assume that we dream about the same present and the same future, and we remember that our paths and contexts have been and will be different. We will ask for clarifications when we don’t understand someone’s point of view, or make a note to learn about it later if we can.
We will embrace the complexity of the world and celebrate each conversation as a step towards shared understanding.