Chloe Kirlew is a 22-year-old Ryerson alumna, graduating from the English program in 2018. She now works in media and film production with her own company, Glass Project Films, and has just produced a short documentary named Hard to Love directed by Chloe herself. Check out our conversation with her below!
Can you tell us about Glass Project Films?
It is a film production company. I don’t have any formal tech education in film — my education is in English and that is my degree and it was definitely helpful for detailed explanations of what I want to happen. Currently, everything I learn for this company has been hands-on and self-taught.
Our mission statement is healing through transparency and representation. There should be no judgment in certain communities and we hope to to remove stigma and have open discussions that, otherwise, are not talked about.
Why did you decide to go into film and media?
Honestly? This started as a passion project of mine. The first film Black Hearts Break, too, was personal and important. I started it when I was really going through something in my life. It was about transparency and community connection.
How long have you been in business?
Well, this all started two years ago, more specifically two summers ago. That’s when I got the idea for our full-length documentary which is in pre-production and the idea for the completed short documentary, Hard to Love, premiering at Black Love Paint Night. Glass Project Films is my company and I started it. However, it’s got a lot of community support and artist support, crews, sound, filming, a ton of people help out. But I’m the writer-director-producer.
What are the future plans for Glass Project Films?
I would love to get legitimized as a business, as we currently are a junior company. I want to continue to produce, and like I said, the full length is in pre-production and since the short documentary has been really successful and well-received at galleries and it’s upcoming debut at Ryerson University, I just want to produce as much as possible.
I want to really delve deep and break stigma and have those uncomfortable conversations; it will be healing to talk about trauma, open a new form of communication for underrepresented people and have them speak in community. So there is [also] fictional work coming and there is collaboration coming up that is more fictional.
Tell us a bit about your upcoming short documentary Hard to Love.
This documentary idea actually came second after our upcoming documentary, Black Hearts Break, Too. It is about 20 minutes long and comes from a similar scene on candid discussions with five members of the BIPOC (Black and Indigenous People of Color) community talking about the intersections faced while loving, some themes being mental illness, dating, casual racism, age, blackness, romantic love, black folk with other black folk, with non-black folk, ourselves. There is also a lot of discussion of this in Black Hearts Break, Too about heartbreak in the black community among different genders, walks of life, and identities. The whole point is the human experience, and I started this because of my own black heartbreak experience and I had a hard time connecting with others. As Black people we internalize these feelings and learn or believe that it is not okay, because we are told we are too emotional or there is no space to discuss these things. There is not a ton of niche talk of romance that is not romantic comedies and as BIPOC people we need representation, there needs to be more talk about this so we know our own stories are heard and someone can relate to us as BIPOC or BIPOC millennials.
Chloe is on Instagram @chlogrows and Twitter @chromatitties. Glass Project Films is on Instagram @glassprojectfilms.
You can find tickets for the Hard to Love screening at Black Love Paint Night here. Please note that this screening is exclusive to Black-identifying students, staff and faculty only for Black History Month.