Drawn Together: Comics, Diversity and Stereotypes
The documentary traces the fascinating journey of three comic creators who challenge the notion of race, appearance, and gender stereotypes through cartoons, comics and cosplay. Featuring Keith Knight, Vishavjit Singh and Eileen Alden.
- Selected in over 52 International Film Festivals
- Winner of 9 major awards including "BEST Documentary", "Freedom Award" and "Jason D Mak award for Social Justice"
Teaching Tolerance Article
The documentary provides the rare opportunity to explore the subjects of race, gender, and religion stereotyping through the universally popular medium of comic books and cartoons. Drawn Together boldly encourages viewers to unlearn stereotyping, look beyond the obvious, and confront media prejudices—all through an uncommon and inherently engaging everyday source.
Expert commentary is provided by Professor Arvind Singhal, a Clinton Foundation Fellow and world expert in entertainment education; Andrew Farago, the curator of San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum; and Adam Elrashidi, a cartoonist and a producer at Al Jazeera. They share their thoughts on how to solve the problem of racist stereotyping through changing the stories being told and discuss how the three profiled artists have brought about a groundswell movement to combat the way Americans traditionally look at racist stereotypes.
Partners
Meet Our Superheroes
Vishavjit Singh
A Sikh, American at heart, technically Caucasian, brown complexioned, occasionally donning the Captain America avatar with a latent power to bust your misconceptions.
Keith Knight
Creator of intelligent, progressive, insightful comic strips. Keith’s work on race and police brutality has garnered interest of people from all walks of life.
Eileen Kaur Alden
Co- Creator of SuperSikh Deep Singh, this comic book writer, musician, rock mama, film producer, music label creator is a person known to break stereotypes related to women head on.
Meet the Experts
Meet Our Team
Director and Producer: Harleen Singh
Harleen developed her passion for storytelling during frequent childhood travels in her native India, exposing her to remote places and diverse personalities. In California since 2009, she has assisted documentary producers and managed content marketing at The History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Her debut film, The Odd Couple: A Story of Two Triathletes (2015), premiered at SIFFT, and screened at festivals across the globe. The film was also a special invitee to the 2015 Parliament of World Religions. Since 2013, she has been a jurist for the United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF). Harleen earned an MBA in Marketing and Strategy from the Indian School of Business.
Director of Photography: Jeffery Gary
Jeff is an award-winning photographer and cinematographer. In 2015, Jeffery was Director of Photography on a short film, CARESS ME, and a music video for the band Giggle Party. In 2014, he was Co-Director of Photography on FANTASTIC, an anthology of short films. He is currently in pre-production on an untitled dramatic short.
Editor: Tal Skloot
Tal Skloot’s feature length documentary film ‘Freeway Philharmonic’ (2010) was broadcast nationally on PBS and toured the globe as part of the U.S. State Department/IDA sponsored American Documentary Showcase, showing worldwide in film festivals and universities. Tal is also a skilled producer, cameraman and editor with a credit list of twenty feature length documentaries and narrative films that have won multiple Emmy awards, been broadcast nationally on PBS, NBC, ABC, CBS and appeared in numerous national and international film festivals. Tal is a graduate of the American Film Institute (AFI) and is an adjunct faculty member at Sonoma State University and the Diablo Valley College film department.