Last month we made it down to Borikén (so-called Puerto Rico) to meet up with a few of the different Centros de Apoyo Mutuo (mutual aid centers). About a dozen centers were established across the island after Hurricane Maria and half of those are still going strong. By rescuing abandoned buildings – primarily schools shuttered through austerity cuts – the centers have established an impressive amount of infrastructure for their communities to meet their own needs through. Since we originally heard about their formation 5 years ago, we’ve been really excited to learn more about the ways these spaces are organized. Getting to visit them in person was such a gift.
We came out of our two weeks there so inspired by the diversity of projects being curated in these spaces, the organic network connecting the centers, and the vision for autonomous, strong communities that participants shared with us. There’s really so much good wisdom and perspective to share from our conversations. Their interviews are going to be a strong foundation to our Earth chapter.
There won’t be room in our series to include most of what we recording. But our plan is to release full length versions of many of our interviews after the film’s release. We see you hungry mutual aid organizing nerds – we’re going to get you as much content as we can.
Currently we’re in Houston where Leah’s family and organizing roots are. We’ve taken a little extra time here to get some deeper rest in the A/C, be with friends, and plan for the next leg of our trip. We’re also recording interviews with members of West Street Recovery and Northeast Action Collective for our Air chapter. These groups have really brought their values for mutuality to life in their organizational structures. Our interviews with these two sister groups are all about what consensus building looks like, the type of work and commitment it takes to build trust, how to rotate responsibilities, how to make meeting spaces more accessible – the nitty gritty, nuts and bolts stuff.
This week we’ll continue our way out west. On to so-called Arizona, Tijuana, San Diego, L.A., and finally Oakland. Originally we planned to be wrapping up production (filming) by the end of October. But there’s still a couple gaps in our story. We plan to fill these by interviewing a few more groups in the southwest, extending production another month or two. We’ll wait to name names, but we’re hoping to include a bail fund effort, a black autonomous community building effort, and a group who’s faced extreme legal repression for their direct aid work.
We’re still on the look out for a group doing transformative justice work and spreading skills for conflict resolution and healing in their community. We’d love to find a group that’s explicitly abolitionist, as grassroots as possible, democratically organized, and BIPOC led. If you know of any groups doing this work that might make a good fit for the documentary, please reach out at [email protected] or on our Instagram.
Lastly, we’re thinking about what it looks like to head into post-production. We have the van to stay in but it’ll be a little difficult to live in full time while trying to edit. We have a few temporary housing options to get us started. If you know of any artists residencies or cheap sublets for next year, we’d love to hear about them.
Keep an eye out for our next crowdfunding campaign to start in a couple months. You can expect another fresh t-shirt design for your radical wardrobe.
Thank y’all for keeping up with the project. We’ll drop y’all some more video content soon.