The political right in the United States and beyond has made it a priority to dehumanize transgender and other queer people, a move that opens the door to discrimination, erasure, and physical harm not only from the government institutions they control but from uneducated and misinformed members of the public.
Tag! exists to cultivate the creation and sharing of humanizing stories from LGBTQIA2S+ communities, and as we approach the 2025 festival we invite you to add your voice—to ask your neighbors to look you in the eye and listen to real people who are impacted by cruelty and ignorance—to fight back with us.
We are asking our directors, casts, crew members, and viewers to challenge the dehumanization of our communities. We will gather a collection of short statements to run at the festival on April 5-6, 2005 and to post on our Bluesky account during the year. Tag! wants everyone to know that we are not objects for them to use in their political games.
If and only if you are in a position to speak out safely, create a video statement no longer than 30 seconds that expresses your joy, your rage, your fear, your individuality... any assertion of your existence you want.
Contact Tag! at info@tagqsf.org with your basic info when your video statement is done. After we've received your message you'll be sent an upload link so you can deposit your file securely.
Because this could end up on a cinema screen, make it HORIZONTAL please. Full HD 1080p is a good format.
Do not use copyrighted music or text, just make this your own personal message.
Keep your file size under 2GB, preferably waaaay under 2GB.
By submitting your work you affirm that you are providing your own creative work with no copyright infringement AND that you give Tag! non-exclusive permission in perpetuity to exhibit your work either alone or in curated blocks in Tag! festival programs and on the Tag! social media accounts including Bluesky and Vimeo.
This all means that you retain copyright of any video you submit to Tag! and can display it anywhere else you like, but that Tag! has permission to use it for as long as we want on any of our official Tag! platforms.