About WOCNI
The Women of Color Narrative Initiative (WOCNI) is an initiative of Visionary Justice StoryLab that advances narrative justice by supporting filmmakers and storytelling practices that center the voices, experiences, and narratives of women of color in film and media.
Women of color have long shaped culture through storytelling while navigating structural barriers to sustained investment and opportunity. WOCNI exists to support projects that reimagine the narratives impacting women’s lives – asserting visionary justice through the lenses they bring to the creative process and to cultural problem solving. By supporting the creation of these stories, the initiative invests in filmmakers’ creative growth while advancing work that reflects both the breadth of experiences shaped by oppression and the nuance and specificity of identity and circumstance. In doing so, WOCNI strengthens a storytelling ecosystem that embraces complexity and expands how stories are told, shared, and understood.
Anchored by the annual Narrative Justice Filmmaker Award, WOCNI awards $5,000 each year to three filmmakers whose bold, innovative approaches to storytelling challenge dominant narratives and expand cultural imagination – supporting work that moves film and media toward more complex, multiplicitous stories.
