The Californer - "Defining Ourselves for Ourselves" Launches Visionary Black Women-Led Film Production Unit Challenging Hollywood Erasure

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The Defining Ourselves for Ourselves Team

A new independent film production unit has officially launched in South Los Angeles with a mission to transform storytelling by centering multigenerational Black women, Black girls and Black LGBTQ+ communities both in front of and behind the camera through a Black feminist and humanistic lens.

LOS ANGELES - Californer -- A new independent film production unit called Defining Ourselves for Ourselves has officially launched in South Los Angeles with a mission to transform storytelling by centering multigenerational Black women, girls and Black LGBTQ+ communities both in front of and behind the camera through a Black feminist and humanistic lens.

Defining Ourselves for Ourselves is a collaboration between Black Skeptics Los Angeles and the Women's Leadership Project. The creation of the unit is a direct response to the racial and gender disparities in the film industry. In 2026, BSLA and WLP released the narrative short film Alpha Centauri, which focuses on a Black teenage girl from South Los Angeles in foster care who becomes a victim of grooming and sex trafficking. The film addresses the disproportionate rates of human trafficking and gender-based violence impacting Black girls.

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Black Skeptics Los Angeles also produced the 2025 "Outliers: Black Women's Theater Showcase" at the Blue Door Theater in Culver City. The showcase spotlighted the work of four Black women writers, directors and producers whose stories challenge conventional industry narratives about older Black women's lived experiences.

Defining Ourselves for Ourselves will unify these artistic and political visions under one production banner encompassing narrative film, documentary filmmaking, experimental media, and theater.

Among the projects currently in production is "The Kinderness", a speculative fiction short, written and directed by Sikivu Hutchinson. The story focuses on The Kinderness Corporation, which is led by a Black woman engineer and manufactures time traveling white androids who are tasked with carrying out acts of historical restorative and reparationist justice for Black communities.

Defining Ourselves for Ourselves is also developing a documentary that examines the surge in violence against Black women and girls in Los Angeles. Directed by Jessica N. Robinson, the documentary will highlight the domestic and national implications of anti-Black gender-based violence, while calling for culturally specific intervention and prevention resources for Black women and girls.

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The new unit will prioritize hiring Black and BIPOC, women and LGBTQ+ talent across directing, producing, cinematography, editing, sound and writing.

According to WLP project director Jessica Robinson, "At a time when Black women and girls and LGBTQ+ communities are experiencing disproportionate violence and erasure, all storytelling is political. We are no longer waiting for permission to amplify our narratives. We are defining ourselves for ourselves."