Good days, and welcome back to our monthly curated newsletter!

As Women’s Month approaches, I'm actively aware of my responsibility to confront pre-conceived notions of what it means to be a woman, to perceive women, to portray women, and to see through the limited and supposed “inclusion” of those who identify as women or are femme-represented. I also reflect on how these ideas have been formed, cemented, and perpetuated in the media and the arts as creatives, and I urge you to do the same as artists and creative people who believe in the transcending values in art.

Most of us are conditioned to understand women as a constrained, binary concept, and such limitation deprives many other identities, working paradigms, and the thinking and works of courageous, intellectual, community-driven women and community caretakers who have fought endlessly to push back against this binary thinking, striving for a more queer and fluid reading of this idea.

It’s also important to use this opportunity to educate ourselves on ongoing struggles and movements against gender-based violence, such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, feminist movements in Mexico, the incessant assaults on trans rights, and the displacement of women and children and ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Ukraine, and so, so so many more. I hope you join me in the process of learning about these movements and unlearning internalized biases, complicity and other pre-conceived notions that have kept you from fully participating.

I see myself as a culmination and product of the powerful thinking and ideas of incredible women and folks who came before me—from my family, my mom, and in the media and academia: bell hooks, Nikki Giovanni, Mila Zuo, Aunty Lawhore Vagistan, Drew Afualo, and so many more that it’d take me a billion years to name them all.

On that note, I’m happy to announce that our first community meet-up and hangout is underway for Vancouver-subscribed readers! It will be a fruitful meetup featuring stripped-down, intimate conversations centering on films, writing, music, and products by creatives who identify as women.

More information is coming soon, so make sure you're subscribed to the newsletter and following us on Instagram @the.produced.

March Curated Rotation

Films I think about all the time this month:

• No Other Land: the 2025 Oscar winner for Best Documentary captures the ongoing suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation, exposing the apartheid system that subjugates their lives through a tiered citizenship structure.

• Rosetta: Young and headstrong, Rosetta struggles to care for herself while living with her alcoholic mother, driven by desperation to hold onto any job at all costs. It begs the question: who can afford the privilege of self-sovereignty?

• Foragers: a blend fiction, documentary, and archival footage to explore the resilience of Palestinian foraging traditions under Israeli laws that ban native plant collection. Conservation or environmental imperialism?

• The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open: after a chance encounter, a woman shelters a pregnant abuse victim and urges her to seek help.

Some reads I got to read and love:

• Journal article “Permission to Narrate” by Edward Said.

• Interview article “I can pilot my own heart” with Alok Vaid-Menon.

• Poem “I Married My Mother” by Nikki Giovanni.

• Decolonize Drag by Dr. Kareem Khubchandani.

• Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal by Mohammed el-Kurd.

• Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative by Isabella Hammad.

Podcasts I start almost all of my mornings with:

• Talk Easy with Sam Frogoso, a podcast featuring conversations with artists, activists and politicians.

• Zeteo with Mehdi Hasan, a podcast and Substack newsletter platforming media accountability, unfiltered news and bold opinions.

Upcoming Reel Talk: Trâm Anh Nguyễn

Next Saturday, I’m welcoming Trâm Anh Nguyễn, a multi-disciplinary artist whose works hold dearly onto his familial Vietnamese roots and trans identity as explored through his films, poetry, and photography.

His work carries a poetic quality, one that discovers tenderness within violence—an act that is paradoxically selfless within the selfish nature of art—and seeks to renarrate memories through a softened gaze. In this conversation, we delve into his upcoming film in production, Mùa Xuân Của Mẹ (Mother’s Spring), which explores the evolving and complicated relationship between a Vietnamese mother and her trans child. As he grapples with the heavy burden of navigating identity in relation to both self and family, the film also tackles the pervasive nature of toxic masculinity, which, unsurprisingly, oppress us all.

We then explored the politics and ethics of reconstructing one’s story from an observer’s perspective in Hoa, a film that serves as a letter to his late grandmother, filled with grief, questions, and both resolved and unresolved answers to lingering wonders.

As creative children of immigrants, it was only natural that the conversation veered into the topic of dismantling the use of our own and our parents’ trauma for self-serving purposes, which often leads to the vilification of their experiences. Can we move beyond vilifying our parents and instead present their complicated, yet perfectly imperfect humanity?

I would argue Trâm Anh Nguyễn’s work is among very few art pieces that have enabled me to see my parents in their totality: flawed, fragile, intense, imperfect, and just normal. And that’s exactly how I imagine one’s totality of a human to be.

I’m honored, and excited to share with you all on next week’s Saturday, March 15th.

Subscription Update!

As mentioned last week, The Produced will be transitioning to fully paywalled content. By becoming a paid subscriber, you'll gain exclusive access to bonus materials and full access once the paywalls are in place for certain content. Your subscription will also help us fund more voices, allowing us to continue supporting and amplifying independent art. Your support is crucial in keeping these important stories alive and independent. Officially starts next week.

That’s it from me for now. Thank you so much for your support and I look forward to our next issue <3

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