Filmmaker Statement

SO TO SPEAK follows a Filipina American student who uses art to encourage new sexualities for herself and other Asian American women. By making a "house of sexuality," she creates the work of sex which is to sift through her cultural inheritance to choose her sexuality, and to recognize both the traumas and joys of brown girlhood. The film shares Filipinx American storytelling and is first of all a collaboration with my younger self, who at age 19, wrote the award-winning epic poem upon which the film directed by my 54-year-old self is based. The film is also a training ground for the next generation of women of color filmmakers: 90% of the cast and crew are women and nonbinary people of color. A crew of mostly young college students worked alongside professional Asian American and Latinx female and nonbinary filmmakers.