At the beginning of 2020, director A.J Greenwood embarked with FINCH and Google on a journey that would span six different countries across the Asia Pacific.
Traveling prior to the pandemic, alongside a small and nimble crew, Greenwood captured the lives of six people who all represented different parts of the LGBTQIA+ community throughout the region.
In pre-production, Greenwood worked alongside each person to write a piece of prose about their individual identity journey. Greenwood then designed a visual portrait based on the everyday life of each individual to be used as a backdrop in which to set their story. With the preproduction, all executed remotely from Sydney, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand the team took off on a whirlwind shoot schedule through the Asia-Pacific.
As Covid-19 began to spread, the team had to navigate the production process to round off the seven-part series. It was a one-and-a-half-year journey for Greenwood; one that she has considered a privilege to have undertaken.
Together, the films celebrate the diversity of LGBTQIA+ experiences within the Asia-Pacific, showcasing the open-hearted, courageous, and intelligent LGBTQIA+ people who live there.
“This series has been an inspiring, life-changing experience, it is a great privilege to be welcomed into these people’s lives and to be entrusted to assist them in telling their stories. I am in awe of all of their strength, courage, and humanity,“ says Greenwood
All the participants hope in sharing their stories and experiences they will help others like them to feel seen.
As a company, Google has long been a supporter of LGBTQIA+ rights and has worked hard to create products and platforms that allow people to express their views while fostering an open environment where people of different views, backgrounds, and experiences can come together and show up for one another.
“Hopefully Finding Pride can help members of our community to see themselves and stories like theirs so they don’t feel so alone, or so different. I wish I had access to stories like these when I was coming out,” says Tara McKenty, Creative Head at Google.
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