Our queer women-led team tells mesmerizing stories about LGBTQ+ women and gender expansive people.

Films

Community Engagement

The Curve Test
Frankly Speaking Series
Community Screenings

Community Engagement

The Founders Fund

Help shape the stories that shape our future.

The Frankly Speaking Founders Fund brings bold queer films to life and connects them to the audiences, communities, and movements that can turn storytelling into lasting change. Your support helps build a future where LGBTQ+ women and gender-expansive people are seen, valued, and impossible to erase.

What We Do

Frankly Speaking Films is a nonprofit creative engine telling mesmerizing stories on universal topics that center strong queer women and gender expansive changemakers. Our queer women-led team creates, directs, EPs, and produces everything from documentaries and fiction films to series and community projects.

Why We Do It

Positive representation is not a luxury—it’s survival. For too long, our stories have been erased, distorted, or ignored. Frankly Speaking Films’ projects celebrate LGBTQ+ women and gender expansive people as essential in the fabric of the world, so we cannot be erased or legislated away.

How We Do It

We make art and impact. Our character-driven stories are crafted to look phenomenal, hit deep, pack the house, and drive change, from the first frame on.

We scale our impact with powerful campaigns around each film, we collaborate with other makers to shift culture, and we champion dozens of projects that amplify underrepresented voices.

Please don’t send unsolicited submissions – we can’t read them!

Frankly Speaking Films is an independent production company led by queer, Oakland-based filmmakers Rivkah Beth Medow and Jen Rainin. We directed and produced the feature documentary AHEAD OF THE CURVE (2020), which streamed on Netflix and STARZ and can be found on Apple and Amazon; the Oscar® shortlisted doc short HOLDING MOSES (2022) on The New Yorker website; and the new short doc THANKS, BABS! (2025) premiering in Frameline. Other credits include the Berlinale Grand Prix winning HUMMINGBIRDS (2023, Producer/Executive Producers) on Criterion Collection and POV; QUEER FUTURES (2024, Consulting Producers) on Criterion Collection; and OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage (2024, Producers) which is in festivals.

Jen is a Film Independent Fellow who co-founded The Curve Foundation to champion LGBTQ+ women’s stories and culture.

Rivkah is a Sundance x Women in Film and Film Independent Fellow whose additional credits include BEING GEORGE CLOONEY (2016, Netflix, Producer) and SONS OF A GUN (2009, SXSW, PBS, Director).

Contact

SUPPORT STORIES

about queer women & gender expansive people