Directed by Dawn Mikkelson and Keri Pickett
United States, 2022, 89 minutes
Finding Her Beat is a very special music documentary feature film. Today, Sunday, November 27th is the last day that it will be available for audiences in the U.S. and U.S. territories to watch online as part of DOC NYC’s virtual screening experience.
Music is the driving beat of cultural and individualist expression for people of color around the globe – offering sanctuary in times of uncertainty and a sense of family/community, helping those to survive and often thrive. Finding Her Beat was made by a predominantly female/nonbinary, largely Asian-American and LGBTQ filmmaking team and cast, when marginalized gendered and people of color are severely underrepresented in film.
For thousands of years women have been locked out of Taiko drumming. Not any more, since thousands of groups now perform throughout North America and worldwide. In the dead of a Minnesota winter just before the world shut down for a global pandemic, Asian drumming divas from around the world met to perform and smash gender roles and redefine power on their own terms.
Finding Her Beat dives into the rhythms and struggles that lead to an electrifying historic performance that changes everything.