Vashist Awarded Two ODU Grants for Film Projects That Center Social Justice
by D'An Knowles Ball 4/08/2021
The Department of Communication & Theatre Arts' Film Professor Priya Vashist, MFA has the distinguished honor of being awarded both ODU's 2021 PURS grant and a Summer Research Fellowship.
In fulfilment of the Summer Research Fellowship, Vashist will be refining the screenplay of the film Yet SO Far with the help of information collected from interviews with queer women of Indian and Filipino backgrounds in San Francisco, who have lived the diaspora experience. The film centers themes of LGBTQ East and South Asian diaspora experiences, political denial, hate crimes against queer immigrants of color, and the invisibility of queerness of South Asian women.
By giving queer South Asian women a voice through Yet SO Far and drawing on her own experiences as a queer Indian woman in America, Vashist has larger goals for the final work, "I hope this project will help increase visibility of queer South Asian community as they have been historically underrepresented in film, both in the United States and internationally."
Out of 17 highly competitive proposals at ODU this year, Vashist was awarded one of only five funded proposals for the PURS grant. Supported by the $10,000 award, Vashist will be working on a short documentary film that tells the story of Norfolk's William A. Hunton YMCA, "As the oldest independent historically African American YMCA in our country, the documentary will cover its history, interwoven with William A. Hunton's journey to become the first African- American full-time director of a YMCA in the United States, and later on becoming the first African American Secretary employed by the International Committee of the YMCA."
By establishing the historical significance of Hunton Y to Norfolk with this film, Vashist also argues for racial advancement of Norfolk's African American community, "The main focus of the film will be on the narrative of the struggle for survival being put up by Hunton Y, in the bigger context of gentrification and displacement of residents of Tidewater Gardens public housing in Norfolk."
In our current political climate, she considers it more important than ever to tell and share stories about underrepresented and underserved communities of our country, "Through Hunton Y: A Hope for Change, I quite literally hope to bring about change in the way cities have been encouraging gentrification through various rules and policies."
Vashist finds it critical that her films address themes of inclusion and aim for wider goals of change, "My works focuses on social justice and representation of minorities on screen, especially queer people of color. My films have tackled topics such as racism, immigration, hate crimes, invisibility of South Asian queerness, and racial, gender and sexual identity. I want to continue exploring these themes in the future, with the goal of informing and educating audiences from more privileged backgrounds."
She continues, "I believe that racism, xenophobia, and homophobia have originated from a lack of understanding of people who are different from the majority. Films have the power to educate and engage audiences by making them relate more to whom they consider the others. My biggest goal through my work is to evoke empathy in audiences for people who are not like them."
Vashist hopes her film students become inspired to document important stories, whether from their lives or their surroundings, and bring them to the screen: "As a filmmaker, my purpose is to tell stories and amplify voices that have not been heard before. Films have a wide outreach and I hope for them to make use of it in a way that benefits humanity."