ABOUT

My name is Fatima Jamal and I am the writer and director of No Fats, No Femmes.  No Fats, No Femmes examines and troubles how the gazes of others — particularly dominant white gazes — inform how we see ourselves and each other. In it, I center and am fascinated by my own Black, fat body as a site of criticism; and, an invitation inward, toward self — often, a self un-done, vulnerable, and terrifying. I ruminate on what it means to sit with that self in a world that positions you away from it and what it would mean, in turn, to offer and present that self to the world with audacity. I raise, with strong conviction, and seek to answer, “which of the blacks are present and in our [collective] imagination and, as a consequence, which will be present or alive in our black futures? What might it take to dream new social and political formations?” 

“Fatima Jamal is a renaissance woman; she sings, writes, acts, produces, directs, and does all of them incredibly well. She puts those talents to incredible use advancing gender equality and racial justice, making strong statements about sexual racism and desirability politics, and modeling what Black artistic excellence can look like today.”

— Gioncarlo Valentine 

MEET THE TEAM

Producer

Lee Laa Ray Guillory is a New Orleans based interdisciplinary artist, curator, and programming director whose public and private works investigate the spiritual functions of art-as-ritual. Guillory initiates the process of healing by creating ceremonial installations and private rituals that speak to the cycle of life and death, and the spiritual release of inherited trauma. In direct collaboration with Fatima Jamal, Guillory examines the intersectionality of colorism, gender, and desirability in relation to the black femme body, challenging contemporary notions of femininity and power. 

Director of Photography

Lucas Habte is a filmmaker and artist living in New York. He received the George Peabody Gardner Traveling Fellowship to facilitate video and radio production with Aboriginal people in remote communities of the Australian outback. The Mortimer Hays-Brandeis Traveling Fellowship brought him to Ethiopia, where he taught film in Addis Ababa University’s MFA program and shot and directed his first feature documentary, Happy You’re Here, currently in post-production. Lucas has presented his work at Columbia, UPenn, Harvard, and on BRIC TV. He’s a Film Independent, TFI Network, IFP, Queer Art, Garrett Scott Documentary Development, and Hot Springs Emerging Filmmaker Fellow. He received his BA from Harvard College and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Second Camera

Namir Fearce is an interdisciplinary artist residing in Chicago, by way of North Minneapolis. Fluidity is central to his practice, drawing on a constellation of references and sites of Black American queer experience. He uses these histories, both personal and cultural, to weave complex, emotional, and political landscapes while exploring the potential bodies, identities, and stories that can arise in these newly woven spaces. Fearce is a 4th year BFA candidate at the School of Art & Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His work has been featured in Red Bull Music Academy, Paper Magazine, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Walker Arts Center, Soap Factory and more.

Still Photography

Texas Isaiah is a visual narrator based in Los Angeles, Oakland, and NYC. The intimate works he creates centers the possibilities that can emerge by inviting Black and Brown individuals to participate in the photographic process. He is attempting to shift the power dynamics rooted in photography to display different ways of accessing support in one’s own body. Texas Isaiah’s work has exhibited in numerous spaces such as Aperture Foundation Gallery (NYC), Charlie James Gallery (LA), Studio Museum in Harlem (NYC), Residency (LA), Hammer Museum (LA), and The Kitchen (NYC). His work has been featured in Art Forum, FADER, Vice, LALA Magazine, and Cultured Magazine.  He is one of the 2018 grant recipients of Art Matters and the 2019 grant recipient of the Getty Images: Where We Stand Creative Bursary grant. 

THE BREAKDOWN

• 50% of funding will cover production: camera equipment, sound, lighting 
• 25% will cover crew: directors of photography and audio 
• 15% will cover travel costs for the cast and crew
• 10% will cover personnel expenses 

THE IMPACT

“What becomes obvious is that we’re not just watching her; we also see how the world reacts to her. The film thus indicts viewers, forcing them to surveil their own biases. When I first watched No Fats, No Femmes, I was blown away by its complicated intimacy and roused by its force. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people I’ve stared at in confusion and discomfort for simply taking up space, and I suddenly became wary of the harm that I’ve done. This is one of the film’s most powerful effects and part of what makes Jamal a contemporary genius. It is incredibly frustrating that an artist this brilliant, this revolutionary, and this multifaceted is not better known, or that her film is not fully funded and supported, as she explains below. The struggle for marginalized voices to tell their own stories is usually thwarted in the funding stage. People who are truly traversing cultural landscapes and doing the critical work of shifting narratives should receive support.” 

— Gioncarlo Valentine, them.

“Fatima has made a cottage industry of the idea of “FatFemme,” a reference to her ongoing documentary project, “No Fats No Femmes.” It’s a visual protest against the biases of being fat, disabled or having HIV within the LGBTQ community. Through that work, as well as her transfixing Instagram, her persona has grown within New York City’s ballroom community, which has helped her land appearances on FX’s popular Pose. She’s also been spotted on the best and most interesting/inclusive runways of New York Fashion Week, sporting brands like Telfar and modeling for Gypsy Sport.”

— Tracy Thompson, JEZEBEL

“The film project in and of itself is a revolutionary demonstration against exclusionary attitudes in the LGBTQA+ community, stemming specifically the discriminatory usage of the phrase on dating apps like Grindr, where it’s used to promote anti-fat and anti-fem bias. Jamal has experienced this type of prejudice firsthand within the gay community, which is why she’s using No Fats No Femmes to sound off on the consequences of having narrow views of the types of bodies and identities that are idealized and desired.”

— Cady Lang,  COOLS

NOTE: If you contributed to this project during the 2015-2016 fundraising cycle and you haven’t received perks, the #NFNF2020 team will be working to get them to you ASAP. Thank you for your support of this project. See you at the finish line!