MAMA BEARS is an intimate, thought-provoking exploration of the journeys taken by Sara Cunningham and Kimberly Shappley, two “mama bears”—conservative, Christian mothers whose profound love for their LGBTQ+ children has turned them into fierce advocates for the entire queer community—and Tammi Terrell Morris, a young African American lesbian whose struggle for self-acceptance perfectly exemplifies why the mama bears are so vitally important. MAMA BEARS is the story of women who have allowed nearly every aspect of their lives to be completely reshaped by love. Although they may have grown up as fundamentalist Christians, these two mama bears are willing to risk losing friends, family, and faith communities to keep their children safe—even if it challenges their belief systems and rips apart their worlds.
The film debuted at SXSW in March 2022 and is currently on the festival circuit. It will air on Independent Lens on June 20, 2023.
To make a tax-deductible donation to the Mama Bears impact campaign, click here.
Follow @MamaBearsDoc on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!
The Makers
Daresha Kyi: Director/Producer
Daresha writes, produces, and directs film and television in Spanish and English. A graduate of NYU Film School, Mama Bears is her second feature documentary. In 2018 she was commissioned by the ACLU to direct Trans In America: Texas Strong, which garnered over 5 million views online, screened at SXSW, and won two Webby Awards and an Emmy. In 2017 she co-directed and produced Chavela, a multiple award-winning documentary about iconic singer Chavela Vargas that was distributed by Music Box Pictures and screened in over 40 countries. She also produced Kristina Wong’s How Not to Pick Up Asian Women and was Executive Producer of Emmy-winning writer Kevin Avery’s satirical take on The Wiz starring an all-white cast called The Whizz and his short comedy, Thugs, The Musical.
Daresha won a fellowship to attend the directors’ program at the AFI Conservatory based on her short, award-winning narrative Land Where My Fathers Died, co-starring Isaiah Washington and produced her first, award winning drama, The Thinnest Line, as a student at NYU.
Daresha’s films have been funded by ITVS, NEA, IDA Enterprise, Creative Capital, the Jerome Foundation, and many other foundations and she has an extensive background in television and has produced programming for FX, WE, AMC, Telemundo, and FUSE, among other networks.
Laura Tatham: Producer
Since making the move to film production, Laura has worked on a number of social justice projects. She is currently co-producing Mama Bears and has previously served as the associate producer for two feature-length documentaries—Chavela (which had its world premiere at the 2017 Berlinale) and Dispatches from Cleveland (which partnered with Color of Change for their 2016 #Voting WhileBlack viral campaign). Laura also acted as the NYC production office manager for American, a series of narrative shorts. Originally hailing from the world of book publishing, Laura has spent nearly ten years in both the corporate (Simon & Schuster) and nonprofit (Feminist Press) publishing sectors, working on countless New York Times bestsellers, as well as Lambda Literary and Pulitzer Prize–winning works.
Amy Bench: Director of Photography
Amy is a cinematographer and filmmaker based in Austin, Texas. She has been twice nominated for the Kodak Excellence in Cinematography Award and has won grants from the Texas Filmmaker’s Production Fund, Women in Film/Dallas, and the Department of Education’s Jacob K. Davits Fellowship, and is a member of the Austin Contemporary’s multidisciplinary artist group The Crit Group. She lensed the feature films Loves Her Gun, which premiered at SXSW in 2013, and The Golden Rut, which premiered at the Austin Film Festival in 2016, and the short Bad at Dancing, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2015. She is currently in pre-production on her third feature film, and was recently named a “DP on the Rise” by Paste magazine. Her work has screened worldwide, at festivals including Sundance, Berlin, New York, and MOMA/PS1.
THE MAMAS
Kimberly: Texas
Kimberly says she was “born a Republican"—one who believed it was her duty as a Southern Christian woman to show up and vote for the conservative party ticket. She bought wholesale into the church’s teachings that the "lifestyles" of LGBTQ people were a choice and that Satan “had ahold of them.” But everything changed the day she overheard her four-year-old son, who she had been punishing for insisting that he was a girl since the age of three, praying to die. This shook her to her core and she began to get educated. When she learned about gender dysphoria and discovered that 41 percent of transgender children attempt suicide due to bullying, social rejection, and depression, she became determined to accept and support her child at any cost. It’s been a long, sometimes painful journey, but Kimberly has become a fierce advocate for LGBTQ rights as she continues to fight for her child in the heart of Texas.
Sara: Oklahoma
For months after her son Parker came out as gay, Sara lay in bed weeping, believing he was doomed to eternal damnation. After five long months, Parker said, “You know, Mom, I had to suck it up for twenty-one years to be your son. Now I need you to suck it up and be my mom." And that did it. Sara closely examined the Bible to come to terms with her new reality, and she could find no justification for the condemnation of homosexuality, so she left her church, officially “came out” in support of her son (losing friends and family members), and joined a mama bears group. When she saw the stats about how many LGBTQ people were rejected by their families, she and a posse of like-minded mama bears started marching in pride parades with a “Free Mom Hugs” banner. After Trump’s election, she took the banner on the road in a ten-city “Free Mom Hugs Tour.
TENITA: CALIFORNIA
Raised in a strict, Pentecostal church, Tenita loves her thirty-three-year-old daughter fiercely—even though Tammi is a lesbian and Tenita firmly believes homosexuality is a sin. As Tenita says, her daughter’s sexuality “does not in any way diminish the love” she has for her, but it does present multiple challenges for both. As a mom in the early stages of the journey toward acceptance, Tenita offers audiences a fascinating study of a mother in flux who is deeply conflicted by her deep, abiding love for her child and the teachings of her faith.
To visit the Mama Bears press page, click here.
Click here to join the Mama Bears' newsletter!
Newsletter Archive:
APRIL 2019
MARCH 2019
DECEMBER 2018
OCTOBER 2018
September 2018
JUNE 2018
May 2018
APRIL 2018
MARCH 2018
FEBRUARY 2018
DECEMBER 2017
November 2017
Made Possible with Funding from:
