East Paradise Collective aims to center the stories and amplify the voices of those who hold marginalized identities through work on documentaries and photography projects. Our team hails from New York City, Washington D.C., and Vienna, and we strive to incorporate diverse and global perspectives throughout our artist processes. We aim to destigmatize and educate about topics that are often ignored by mainstream society. Our approach is rooted in DEAI best-practices, ethical film making, and care.
We have worked on projects that share the experiences of sex workers, incarcerated women, formerly incarcerated women, and those who are impacted by drug addiction and homelessness. Through relational organizing and research, we identify opportunities for storytelling. We work to build authentic relationships with our “subjects” before filming ever begins and involve them in the creation process from concept to completion. We contextualize the stories of real people with observations and research from experts, who also hold diverse identities.
The founding members started creating together in 2021 and throughout their cooperation quickly knew the wanted to work on more projects as a team. East Paradise Collective was initiated at the beginning of 2023 to give this partnership a more formal platform.