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Memory serves as an empathy engine in these films, transporting us through the tapestry of present beauty, past acceptance, and future affirmation. These narratives invite us to reflect on the lessons and gift of our own memories and the evolving nature of identity, reminding us of the universal quest for belonging and affirmation. As we traverse these intimate stories, we are reminded of the importance of honoring our past, embracing the present, and envisioning a future where every individual can live their truth unapologetically.
Screening followed by Q&A with: Roberto Fatal (writer/producer/director, Do Digital Curanderas), Rraine Hanson (Director & co-writer, Mooncake), and Nava Mau (Director, Actor, Writer, All The Words But the One).
About The Films
Mooncake
Directed by Rraine Hanson | 2022 | 12 min
Mooncake is an experimental meditation on gender queerness and the blurred lines between influence, desire, and obsession. The docu-fictional film revisits an unnamed subject’s childhood memory, resurfacing the nascent fantasies that once captured their imagination. What can we learn from our formative fascinations? Where in our mind do they live? How do they re-emerge?
Screenplay by Pangan Eggermann, Zi Lu, Rraine Hanson | Executive Produced by Taylor Roberts | Produced by Pangan Eggermann | With Arianne Alizio | Starring Kennie Zhou, Kae Fujisawa, Shan Jiang
Re-Entry
Directed by Ariel Mahler | 2024 | 16 min
When a trans scientist rediscovers a lost satellite from her former life as a NASA engineer, she’s forced to confront her painful past in order to reconcile who she once was with who she’s always been.
Screenplay by Ariel Mahler, Nicholas Schmid, Kunal Sengupta | Produced by Ilayda Cetinkaya | Starring Danielle Squyres, Tirosh Schneider, Robert Dowdy, Matthew Henerson, Leon A. Walker, Jodi Harrison
Neo Nahda
Directed By May Ziadé | 2023 | 12 min
When Mona, a young woman in London, finds archive photographs of Arab women cross-dressing in the 1920s, she starts a feverish journey of uncovering lost histories and her own identity.
Screenplay by May Ziadé | Produced by Antonia Luxem | Starring Eman Alali, Mona Khaouli, Vian Rajabzadeh, Nadia Nadif
Do Digital Curanderas Use Eggs In Their Limpias?
Directed By Roberto Fatal | 2023 | 14 min
A struggling Latinx healer considers abandoning the physical world for promises of a digital utopia.
Screenplay by Roberto Fatal | Executive Produced by Erica Tremblay, Peshawn Bread, J. Amezcua Porras | Produced by Roberto Fatal, Jenny Koreny | With Bianca Beyrouti | Starring River Gallo, Angel Zeas
all the words but the one
Directed By Nava Mau | 2024 | 18 min
Maya and Santiago haven’t seen each other in years. Unexpectedly seated together at a professional dinner with their new partners, Maya struggles to stay focused in the present with her new partner.
Screenplay by Nava Mau | Executive Produced by Lilly Wachowski, Bamby Salcedo, Alex Schmider, Sowj Kudva | Produced by Elle B | With Anesia Potter, Lø Zubia Calsada | Starring Nava Mau, Domenic Kim, Shaan Dasani, Dani Woodson, Sis, Celine Jackson
The Sea Runs Thru My Veins
Directed By Zara Zandieh | 2019 | 20 min
A poetic, stream of consciousness documentary featuring four protagonists who have had to grapple with difficult life circumstances and complex, personal challenges. Each of them shares their own point of view on the subject keeping us most occupied – happiness.
Screenwriting by Zara Zandieh | Produced by Zara Zandieh | Starring Llanquiray Valioska Painemal Morales, Sabuha Salam, Amir Zandieh, Neomi Ilan
About The Directors
Rraine Hanson is a Jamaican transdisciplinary artist who utilizes design and mixed media to tell stories centering the experiences and imaginations of queer and trans people of colour. Their visual style is heavily informed by surrealism and the aesthetics of their Caribbean upbringing and is always seeking to answer the question: what can be found in the crevice between our dreams and our memories? They were awarded the 2020 Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant for their short film Mooncake, which premiered at e-flux in New York City and has since screened at film festivals across the globe. When they’re not experimenting with their own storytelling, they work in television helping art departments build all kinds of different worlds. The hands-on crafting experience informs the methodology behind all their personal creative endeavors, both written and visual.
Ariel Mahler is an award-winning trans writer and director, and a recent graduate of AFI’s Directing Fellowship. Ariel’s thesis film, Re-Entry, received an Alfred P. Sloan grant, and is in consideration for a Yugo BAFTA Student Award. Ariel’s short documentary, Evan Ever After, screened at festivals across North America and has won several awards, including the Audience Award for Best Florida Short at the Florida Film Festival, and Jury Awards for Best Documentary Short at Out on Film Atlanta and Stamped Film Festival. The film was commissioned to screen for a Florida State Parent Teacher Association meeting and an NYC citywide Gender and Sexuality Alliance summit for public schools. In addition to her MFA, Ariel holds an MA in Theatre Education from Emerson College, and a BA in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic. Ariel is driven to tell queer stories about misfits seeking authenticity through human connection.
May Ziadé is a French-Lebanese filmworker and filmmaker based in London. She is also the co-founder of Other People's Films, a production company that produces short films and serves to create bridges between artist moving image works and conventional films with a strong artistic voice.
Roberto Fatal is a Meztize Chicana filmmaker and storyteller. They come from Rarámuri, Genízaro, and Spanish ancestry. Their Queer, gender fluid, Mestize/Mixed identity informs the sci-fi, films they make. Their work centers on humans who sit at the intersections of time, space and culture. From this unique vantage point, these characters can bridge divides, see all sides, find new paths forward and recall multiple histories long forgotten. The mixed people of Fatal’s stories can connect us deeply to an undercurrent of humanity that we often overlook in a world that is increasingly divided. Survival, intersectional identity, perseverance, love, empathy, community, connection and creation are at the heart of their characters and films. Fatal is a Sundance Film Institute Native Film Lab Fellow Alum and an Imagine Native Director's Lab feature film fellow alum. Their debut feature script, Electric Homies, was selected by GLAAD x The Black List as one of the best unproduced screenplays of 2022 and was awarded the 2023 SFFILM Rainin Screenwriting Grant.
Nava Mau is a filmmaker, actress, and cultural worker from Mexico City and San Antonio, Texas. Nava wrote, produced, directed, and starred in Waking Hour (2019), a short film that screened in festivals around the world and won the NewFest Audience Award. She was a Production Fellow for the Netflix documentary Disclosure (Sundance 2020), and worked as a producer on the short film Work (Sundance, Tribeca 2022). She has also appeared as a series regular in the HBO Max series Generation (2021) and the Netflix limited series Baby Reindeer (2024). For eight years, Nava worked in the fields of healing justice and culture change with community-based service providers, student organizations, and survivors of violence. She first worked with immigrant survivors as a legal assistant, and then as a peer counselor and advocate for LGBTQ survivors of violence.
Zara Zandieh is a director, filmmaker, and author born in Berlin. Queer and post-migrant characters often take center stage in Zara’s stories. They are multifaceted, self-ironic, resilient, complex, and are narrated and staged with a great deal of love and tenderness within their contradictions. Zara is inspired by the narrative styles and film languages of arthouse cinema, as well as queer pop culture. Zara’s short films and video installations have been exhibited at various international film festivals, garnering acclaim and receiving awards. They have been recognized for their innovative storytelling and artistic merit. Currently, Zara is dedicated to developing fictional projects, revising the screenplay for their queer debut film In Deinen Händen/ In Your Hands (working title). Together with Tia Morgen, Zara is creating the miniseries CLOUD9 (working title).