Q&A with Storyline Partners' Sanaz Alesafar

Storyline Partners is a non-profit collective of cultural consultants advising and representing issues and community organizations to ensure accurate and authentic entertainment narratives. We also act as an expert referral service for issues that don’t fall within our immediate expertise. Our approach is through an intersectional lens. We connect the happenings between culture, policy, and people, and translate them into storytelling.

As a one-stop-shop, we work with writers to ensure characters and storylines are nuanced, provide research for the development phase of projects, and engage in the writer’s room. We also conduct Stories for Change trainings that develop cultural competence in understanding the communities that have long been misrepresented in pop culture and entertainment.

Our members include ACLU, Amnesty International USA, Better Life Lab, Caring Across Generations, Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE), Define American, Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF), Disabled Journalist Association, Everytown for Gun Safety, Harness, Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), Student Veterans of America (SVA), and The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The global pandemic and racial reckonings in the United States have amplified the need for inclusive entertainment and narratives. Audiences learn much about cultures, issues, and communities from film and television. Thus, it’s imperative that narratives stop perpetuating stereotypes, provide narrative possibilities and worlds, and mitigate discrimination and bias.

The entertainment industry is slowly evolving its practices and creating more opportunities for diverse communities in the country. We need cultural consultants to support creatives as we work to develop professional and creative environments that reflect society. There is an impossible expectation that writers and decision-makers that come from diverse backgrounds are monoliths for their communities. No one person can represent the multitude of identities that encompass different cultures within a community. Storyline Partners provides expertise to ensure nuance and rigor where a narrative necessitates.

We believe that cultural consultants should be integrated within the development phase. Our goal is to be incorporated into budgets just as an editor, wardrobe, etc. Our consulting ensures that the core of a story and any entertainment project is inclusive, artistic, and market viable.

We will continue to provide consulting services. In addition, we are curating more cultural narratives programming and amplifying specific urgent social issues such as climate crisis, democracy, and issues particularly affecting womxn-identifying in the realm of labor, family, and justice issues.

Believe in the power of storytelling. Support artists and organizations working on culture and social change. While the return on investment is not immediate, narrative strategists are working for long-term gains on complex issues and communities that have been strategically silenced. A good story well told has the power to shift culture, evolve behaviors and encourage positive action.