The Hostage 

That feeling in your gut which tells you that there’s something out there you should look for and make your own, is what the power represents

Coverage from the Austin Film Festival, highlighting some panels and films that emphasized the importance of diverse and inclusive storytelling.

I didn’t love Expecting Amy, the mini-series following Amy Schumer’s pregnancy, but it brought up a lot of great unspoken side-effects of working and growing a human in America.

This fantasy musical movie is an origin story about the title character.

In the film adaptation, director Jon M. Chu turns each musical number into a massive show stopper, with grand set pieces and a wealth of diverse dancers. Yet, in this attempt to show reverence for the people of the Washington Heights barrio, Chu, or maybe more specifically those in charge of casting, left out a crucial part of the community, Afro-Latinos.

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone has a complicated relationship with race. It has a diverse cast, but not without its problems. Based on Leigh Bardugo’s two book series, the show features characters from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is very straight and white, and the Six of Crows duology, which is much more diverse. When bringing together a cast and writing about these characters, the team behind the show expanded upon some of the representation missing from the first trilogy, then seemed to take away representation from the duology. Shadow and Bone seems to play a bit of a push and pull game when it comes to portraying diversity onscreen.