A World We Dare to Imagine: Part 3, The American Tapestry

The American Tapestry, a Cultural Film Foundation—Bringing Diverse Stories to Hollywood

Our mission is to provide minority filmmakers with the tools that they need to find their own unique voice and help them through every step of getting their films made. We provide grants, mentorships, and industry partnerships so that these minority artists can tell their unique stories in their own way. 

Currently, movies are developed with little regard to the deep emotional and cultural effects that they have upon the audiences that watch them. What people don't realize is that behind every movie is a collection of artists who have constructed that story from pieces of their unique experiences. They put their soul into every frame of the film. Ultimately this reflection of the artist is what the audience sees and connects with because it reflects their own experiences and struggles. However, when the only artists that are hired all have the same cultural backgrounds and experiences, they all start to tell the same story over and over again. Then the minorities in the audience see the film and don’t see their experiences reflected which loses potential customers, and more importantly it causes negative cultural and psychological effects.

The main problem the current Hollywood system is that even though there is an increased awareness of the lack of diversity, there is a continued lack of systems in place to help foster and nurture this diversity at the source. Recently, Hollywood executives have seen the attendance numbers beginning to negatively shift due to push back from neglected groups and have started aggressively pursuing diversity. As a result, they have failed to build and foster the voice of minority filmmakers, instead opting to set diversity hiring quotas. They rush to shoehorn minority filmmakers into stale ready-made projects, rather than giving them the opportunities and training to tell the new stories that they long to share.

The United States' diversity is what makes it so special, yet the cultures of many minorities continue to be neglected within Hollywood, and because of this their stories are lost and unknown within our culture. The American Dream is like a tapestry that all Americans weave together. The American Tapestry works to give minority filmmakers the needles and thread that they need to weave their unique stories into the fabric in order to make the tapestry finally represent the minorities that have been neglected for so long. The American Tapestry creates programs that take promising young minority filmmakers, teach them how to find their own unique voice, give them the funding that they need to produce their projects, and partner them with studios for distribution. so that every culture within the United States can finally see itself and its stories reflected within the film industry.