Editor:
More than 70 million people worldwide stutter – including an estimated 3 million Americans.
Stuttering exists in every culture in our society and does not discriminate by age, culture, language, ability, socioeconomic status, gender identity, sexuality, legal status, ethnicity or race.
However, stuttering is a disability we continue to see mocked in popular culture – from sports commentators making fun of athletes who stutter to memes from political rallies. Our understanding of stuttering has been built on these negative narratives and cliched tropes, misrepresenting our community.
We need your help to change this narrative around stuttering.
I’m Maya Chupkov, a San Francisco filmmaker, and I am working on my first film, which is in pre-production. It aims to change the narrative around stuttering. It’s called “Rock of Hope: Confronting Stuttering, Incarceration, and Rebirth,” and it is a redemption story about Jay Jordan finding strength in his stutter after experiencing bullying, incarceration and homelessness.
Our team wants to educate and build empathy around stuttering with as many people as we can with this film, but we need to finish it before this can happen!
Here’s where community comes in. We need to raise $21,500 through Seed & Spark to complete production. All of the key players are in place, we have a solid timeline and detailed plans, but we need the funding to finish the job. As part of a non-profit, we’re responsible for all of our own fundraising. This crowdfunding campaign will provide vital funds which will be used to finish the film and bring Jay’s story to the screen!
We need to reach 80% of our goal by the end of the campaign or we get NOTHING.
If you want to get involved, you can even claim a cool reward. My personal preference is the $25 incentive:
- $10 supporters receive a social media shout out
- $25 supporters receive special access behind the scenes content on a private BACKER ONLY Tumblr page. Plus, you will receive a customized digital sticker.
- $50 supporters receive a special shout out on Proud Stutter podcast
If you’d like to support us but just can’t afford to support us monetarily, that’s okay! (Really!) Here’s what they can do instead:
- “Follow” the campaign on Seed&Spark! Once we hit 250 “followers,” regardless of how many people pledge, we’ll start unlocking creator discounts for this and future projects.
- Post about on social media on launch day on May 17, during Stuttering Awareness Week.
I’ve been working on this project since 2022, and as it’s my first foray into filmmaking, I’m pretty excited for people to finally see it! I hope readers will join us and enjoy the ride.
Thanks for your help. I feel like I was born to make this film and couldn’t be more excited.
With gratitude,
Maya Chupkov
P.S. We are organizing a fun community launch event for the film on Thursday, March 16 at 6pm at Aquitaine SF. Chat with local filmmakers, enjoy good company, wine, and small bites!
Categories: letter to the editor
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 