“Why G6?”
image of G. Chesler by Louis
Bio.
G. Chesler (they/them, aka Giovanna, aka G6) tells stories addressing gender, sexuality and racial justice, through and despite the body. G’s films have been exhibited at hundreds of film festivals worldwide and in museums and gallery spaces, while their essays appear in academic and literary journals. They are a 2024 PGA Create Fellow for their work Producing the documentary feature Intersex Justice with director Aubree Bernier-Clarke and are at work Producing Distribution, Impact and Marketing for the feature documentary Outliers and Outlaws with director Courtney Hermann. They are Directing and Producing a new documentary film, now in post-production, centering the stories of trans, non-binary, and gender variant people during the COVID 19 pandemic, awarded a Portland, Oregon Regional Arts and Culture Council grant.
G. Chesler is a Full Professor of Film and Video Studies at George Mason University, and affiliated faculty in Women and Gender Studies (read more about their educational work in Mason Spirit Magazine.) They received an MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University (awarded Most Distinguished Graduate) and a BA in Anthropology and minor in Women's Studies (with Highest Distinction) from the University of Virginia.
G. has directed and produced a dozen films, from feature documentaries to narrative shorts, which have played at festivals worldwide including Frameline, Outfest, Ann Arbor Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Festival, with curated screenings of their films at Anthology Film Archives, La Jolla Contemporary Art Museum and National Museum of Women in the Arts in DC. The Pick Up, their most recent short fiction film, is a rom-com distributed by Gonella in France. It won Best Short Fiction Film (Audience Award) at Cineffable Paris International Lesbian and Feminist Film Festival and Best Short Film (Audience) from image+nation in Montreal. As a feature screenwriter, G.’s most recent script Sweetheart Ranch advanced to the second round of the Austin Screenplay Competition and was a semi-finalist at the Vancouver International Women Film Festival Screenwriting Competition.
Of note in their documentary work - G.’s hour-long documentary Period: The End of Menstruation (16mm, distributed by Cinema Guild NYC) looking at cultural and medical trends in menstruation. Period was featured on the front page of The New York Times as a touchstone on the debate over menstrual suppression. The article became was the most emailed NYT article for two days and Period received international press attention.
G. produced the award-winning documentary Out in the Night (distibuted by New Day Films) about a group of friends who became criminals for defending themselves against a homophobic street attack. The ITVS co-production premiered on PBS’ POV and Logo Network simultaneously. Out in the Night screened in 70 countries through the United Nations’ Free+Equal campaign to combat homophobia and violence against trans people worldwide.
With collaborator D. Andy Rice, G. co-edited and Associate Produced Zeinabu irene Davis' documentary Spirits of Rebellion: Black Cinema from UCLA about the first collective of black, Asian American and Latinx filmmakers in the US that aimed to reimagine the film production process to represent, reflect on, and enrich the lives of people in their own communities. Spirits was awarded the African Academy Award for Best Diaspora Documentary and won an audience award and jury award at Blackstar Film Festival for Best Documentary.
For more than two decades, G. has produced videos for progressive organizations and artists through their production company, G6 Pictures. Most recently they worked with alumni of W.C. Taylor High School in Warrenton Virginia to tell the story of this progressive institution, the first high school serving African American students in Fauquier County, Virginia during segregation. W. C. Taylor High School: A Legacy is a co-production of G6 Pictures and the Mason Film Lab. With filmmakers Meagan Arnold and David Mason, G. traveled to Pompeii, Italy to focus on the Pompeii Food and Drink Project and their archaeological endeavor to document all food and drink consumption and production in the ancient city.
G. recently served as an Advisor to filmmakers in the newly launched ITVS Humanities Documentary Development Fellowship, a program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. They have previously served on granting and festival juries, including the selection committee for AFI Docs, The Rubys, and the Tampa LGBTQ Film Festival.
G. began their film career as a San Francisco-based filmmaker, working as the Production Manager of Wild @ Start: High Technology Adventures and the American Dream (dir. Jay Capela, 2000.) Wild @ Start followed 15 startup companies in Silicon Valley during the high tech bubble of the late 90's. G’s earliest film award was the Gold Plaque Award for Best Student Documentary from the Chicago International Film Festival for their first film, BeauteouS: Stephanie. G. co-founded Ladyfest San Diego with photographer Kim Manchester and was recognized as a “Most Distinguished Filmmaker” by the San Diego Women Film Festival where they crafted a curriculum teaching filmmaking to young girls that is still used by the Girl Scouts of America. Women in Film and Video DC has identified G. as one of 31 filmmakers of note.
They have worked as a Professor for 22 years at various institutions, teaching courses in directing fiction and documentary film, community engaged video activism, interactive storytelling, transmedia for social justice, feature screenwriting, and sound theory and design. They served as Program Director of Film at Mason for seven years, developing and growing this inclusive film program with faculty and staff. Film at Mason became the top film production program in the Commonwealth of Virginia under their leadership. G continues to teach as a Professor at Mason. Their current courses include Radical Camera, Introduction to Film Form, and Screenwriting.
G’s writing on queer and trans film is on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/g6_pix/ under G6.