BY MC GALANG

We will be hosting a screening of the award-winning documentary film, Call Her Ganda, on Saturday, March 7, 2020, in partnership with Active Vista, a human rights education platform established by the DAKILA organization (an organization of artists, cultural and development activists, students, young professionals and individuals building a movement of heroism towards social transformation).

Directed by PJ Raval, the film chronicles the story of Jennifer Laude, a Filipina trans woman brutally murdered by a U.S. Marine in 2014, and the “three women intimately invested in the case: an activist attorney (Virgie Suarez), a transgender journalist (Meredith Talusan) and Jennifer’s mother (Julita “Nanay” Laude) [to] galvanize a political uprising, pursuing justice and taking on hardened histories of US imperialism.”

The screening will be held at Jess & Pat’s in Maginhawa, Quezon City at 1:00 PM. Admission price is PHP 150, which will be donated to local organizations that work with and support the LGBTQ+ community.

Our film screening of Call Her Ganda aims to inform and provide a space within the music community—through Jennifer Laude’s story—that sheds light on the realities and issues surrounding the LGBTQ+ community in general, but particularly trans people, who have most recently been subject of a viral song that not only perpetuates transphobia and transmisogyny, but was further enabled and cosigned for when it was distributed by a major record label.

While the song has since been taken down, we believe there is a greater discussion to have, not only to prevent similar attitudes and hostilities to reoccur, but why do they exist in the first place and how we can, as a community, do better and be better allies for each other. We are one with the Laude family and the entire community in calling for #Justice4Jennifer.

We at The Rest Is Noise are continuously committed to our duty and responsibility of championing music from the Philippines and from Asia, but also to ensuring the music space, which we hold dearly, are safe and inclusive to all and that Jennifer and the thousands of victims of abuses and hate crimes #wontbeerased.

RSVP to the event on Facebook.

Jennifer Laude's photo displayed on an altar in her home (IMAGE COURTESY OF ACTIVE VISTA)
Nanay Meredith holds a photo of her daughter (IMAGE COURTESY OF ACTIVE VISTA)