Rosie Haber

Describe your background in community and/or social action causes.

Before dedicating myself to film, I was a teacher in low-income communities in Oakland, California. I worked for four years as a Special Education teacher and advocate for people with disabilities. During the day, I oversaw the Special Education department, ran the Gay Straight Alliance at the school in which I worked, and taught classes. At night, I took graduate classes in Special Education in order to gain a greater depth of knowledge and to improve my pedagogy.

At the root of everything I did was a desire to close the achievement gap between my students, low-income students of color with learning disabilities, and their affluent white peers. On a basic level, I wanted them to have access to an excellent education in order to be self-realized individuals and simply to be able to survive in society.

Although I was a product of the American school system, I had no idea how incredibly racist and classist it was (and continues to be). My 9th grade students, whose reading levels ranged from a pre-kindergarten level to a 5th grade level, did not have access to textbooks that they could read. Nor was the Special Education department allotted any money with which to buy accessible books. I began dedicating myself to fundraising for supplies. I wrote small grants and was able to buy a set of dictionaries and a DVD player for the classroom. I found a non-profit that gave away free books to educators. We held class fundraisers, and I basically hustled anyone I knew for money.

In addition to fundraising, I always endeavored to build community by bringing together like-minded educators. I attended the Teaching for Social Justice Conference in San Francisco, and networked with other teachers at workshops. In the summers, I worked for Oakland Teaching Fellows – a non-profit organization that recruits and trains new teachers with the aim of teacher retention and the closing of the achievement gap.

I am actively involved in the LGBTQ community as well. In the beginning of the summers, I volunteered for the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, the longest-running LGBTQ film festival in the world. I chaired the Gay Straight Alliance at my school in order to provide students with a safe space for airing their feelings. I attended marches and rallies against Prop 8 (the prop that eliminated gay marriage in California), vigils for gay teen suicides, and protests against the constant killing of trans people.

My background in social justice completely informs my filmmaking and artistic expression. Film is a powerful medium with a wide reach. It has the ability to change minds and depict different realities. My work is always rooted in issues of racial, gender, class, and sexual justice.

What current issues are of interest?

As mentioned, educational equality will always be an issue of interest to me. In December, I returned to Oakland, California (from Singapore, where I currently study film) and shot a documentary on two young men with autism trying to transition into adult life and the struggles they face as they do so. I will continue to work on films that portray and advocate for people with disabilities. Although it is a vast topic, I am also interested in making films that depict the inequities of the American educational system. I will always work in Education in some way or another.

Lately, I have been very interested in issues of immigration equality. More specifically, I have been researching the legislation around gay binational partnerships. As it stands currently, gay people cannot sponsor a partner to come and live in the same country. It struck me as unconscionable that two people from different countries could love each other and never be able to live together. I am currently writing a feature about a gay family that is torn apart by such legislation, and the lengths to which they will go to be together.

As I began to research more about immigration equality, I also became enraged about the rules around who is granted asylum and why, around the conditions (and very use) of detention centers for non-American citizens, and a myriad of other immigration-related issues. This will continue to be a topic that I research and advocate for in the years to come.