G. Chesler

Professor

documentary film, fiction film directing, transmedia, social issue media production

Prof. G. Chesler (they/them) is a director and producer of documentary and fiction films exploring gender, disability sexuality, and racial justice through and despite the body. Their latest documentary film Connection | Isolation focuses on trans lives during COVID-19, considering community cultivators who sought and created trans communities during the strictest periods of isolation in the pandemic. Connection has screened at several festivals in the US and Italy, including the DisOrient Asian American Film Festival, Divinely Queer in Torino, Italy, and the Transgender Film Festival in Tampa, Florida. Prof Chesler is a Producer, distributing and managing impact for Outliers and Outlaws on the migration of hundreds of lesbian world-builders to Oregon in the 1960’s – 1980’s.

Prof Chesler’s previous films include the feature documentary Period: The End of Menstruation that became a cultural touchstone on the changing meanings of menstruation and gender. They Produced the feature documentary Out in the Night on a group of Black lesbian and genderqueer friends who were attacked, homophobically, and criminalized for defending themselves. The film was broadcast on PBS and LOGO television and screened in 70 countries when it launched the United Nations’ Free+Equal campaign to combat homophobia and transphobia worldwide. Prof. Chesler directed and produced the short documentary WC Taylor High School: A Legacy on the first accredited high school in Northern Virginia to serve African American students, now part of the Folkstreams collection. And Prof. Chesler co-edited Spirits of Rebellion: Black Cinema from UCLA which won top awards at Blackstar and the African Academy Awards, which features the filmmakers of the Los Angeles Rebellion, a ground-shaking movement of independent Black filmmakers in the US by Zeinabu irene Davis.

Among Prof. Chesler’s award-winning short fiction films are the queer rom coms The Pick Up and BeauteouS, and melodramas Java and Bye Bi Love. Their work as a screenwriter includes these shorts and feature film scripts. You can view their films at g6pictures.com. They are a Board Member of NW Documentary and regularly jury for film festivals and grants.

Prof. Chesler’s written scholarship focuses on sound, documentary, and community engaged learning. Prof. Chesler’s new essay “Antiracist Pedagogy Requires Co-Conspirators” published in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies Teaching Dossier focuses on structural strategies for antiracist teaching practices in film and media instruction. Their recent interviews with parents who are educators “Parenting and Professoring in the Pandemic” appeared in Jump Cut and provides a glimpse into what educators with young children faced during restrictions supporting communal health.

Professor Chesler’s G6_Pix on Instagram features their writing and film news.

Selected Publications

Connection | Isolation (2024, 85 min)
W.C. Taylor High School: A Legacy (2021, 22 min)
"Antiracist Pedagogy Require Co-Conspirators" in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies
"Professoring and Parenting in a Pandemic" in Jump Cut
The Pick Up (2018, 11 min)
Java (2017, 10 min)

Grants and Fellowships

Producer’s Guild of America (PGA) Create Fellowship in Documentary

Portland Events and Film Office Post-Production Grant

Media Arts Grant, Regional Arts and Culture Council

DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Fellow in Media Arts

Best Fiction Short Film, Audience Award – Paris Cineffable Film Festival

Best Short Film, Audience Award – image+nation Montreal Film Festival

Semi-Finalist, feature film screenplay – Austin Screenwriting Competition

Jury Award, Screenwriting – Big Muddy Film Festival

Courses Taught

FAVS 204: Film Art
FAVS 280: Writing for the Moving Image
FAVS 356: Film Marketing
FAVS 367: Experimental Filmmaking (formerly Radical Camera)
FAVS 377: Interactive Storytelling
FAVS 450: Internship in Film and Video Studies
FAVS 483: Feature-Length Scriptwriting

Education

MFA, Cinema, San Francisco University (Most Distinguished Graduate)
BA, Anthropology, Minor Women’s Studies, University of Virginia (with Highest Distinction)

In the Media

"Now Streaming, Taylor High film finds forever home in Delaplane" Fauquier Times, 2025

#MeToo, Black Lives Matter Movements Reflected in the Oscars, interview for Voice of America

Suns Cinema Podcast: Film Studies with Giovanna Chesler

“W.C. Taylor film tells former high school’s story” Fauquier Now