Director, producer, author, activist, I divide my time between research and creation. Following Speak Up – my first self-produced and self-distributed film which gives voice to 24 Black francophone women – released in French, Belgian and Swiss theaters in 2017 and in Canada in 2018; I’ve released a second feature length documentary, A Story of One’s Own. This archival film on transnational and transracial adoption from the perspective of 5 adult adoptees was released in French theaters on June 23, 2021, swiss theaters on February 2nd and at the Cinémathèque québécoise on August 26, 2022. I regularly appear as a speaker about of filmmaking, Afrofeminism, intersectionality or adoption. In 2018, I founded “Adoptees Awareness Month”, a series of events taking place every year in November between France, Switzerland, Belgium and Quebec to allow adoptees to flip the script and reclaim the narrative.
In 2021, I decided to share my adoption story and published my first book, A Chocolate Doll, an autobiographical essay on adoption with editions La Découverte (France) and Remue-Ménage (Quebec). In 2022, I moved back to Montreal started a Black-owned production company: Caïssa Productions.
You can follow her in French and in English on social media:
@orpheonegra
Press
“To mobilize, you need to understand that what is happening to you is political. But if you’re in survival mode, if you’re extremely isolated in the countryside, if you’re not part of a family that’s already political, it can be very difficult. I had a political upbringing — my mom was a member of a teachers’ union, I always went to demonstrations as a kid, etc. — so it was easy for me to become politicized, but most people don’t have that.
I like writing, sharing what I know, offering a perspective. I like to be that person in the struggle who helps people feel less lonely. I like to show all different perspectives so that people know they are not alone, that what is happening is wrong and its legitimate for them to think it is, and that there might be issues, and one of the ways to fix them is to organize collectively.”
Los Angeles Review of Books, Decolonize the Family: A Conversation with Amandine Gay, May 5th 2022
“One actress interviewed acknowledges that the range of roles for black women is narrow and stereotypical; “I feel like I can’t refuse roles that I’m offered, because I either change jobs or direct my own films,” she says. That is exactly what Gay has done with “Ouvrir la Voix.” It is both a vital film in itself and a virtual kit for the inspiration of other filmmakers; it’s an opening of voices and of paths.”
The New Yorker, “Ouvrir la Voix”: A Radically Frank Documentary About the Experience of Black Women in France, July 16th 2018