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Embark on a journey through short films celebrating queer resilience, creativity, and diverse identities. Follow Felicia Oh, a Taiwanese-American drag queen in NYC; Saturn Risin9, a Bay Area performance artist; Shoog McDaniel's celebration of marginalized bodies in Florida; Fran's nostalgic hometown visit; and the lives of five trans artists in Mexico City. These films explore identity and belonging through storytelling, dance, photography, and performance, fostering unity and appreciation for creative expression.
About The Films
Love Letter to Asian Women
Directed By Min Soo Park | 2024 | 9 min
Felicia Oh, a Taiwanese drag queen, challenges stereotypes and reshapes perceptions of Asian femininity against the backdrop of New York City.
Produced by Ted Kim | Starring Eric Chuang, Felicia Oh
Saturn Risin9
Directed By Tiare Ribeaux and Jody Stillwater | 2024 | 11 min
Queer performance artist and musician Saturn Risin9 returns home to the Bay Area to share their journey of perseverance centering healing, self discovery, creative expansion, and joy poetically told through documentary, dance, visual narrative, and performance.
Screenwriting by Saturn Risin9, Tiare Ribeaux, Jody Stillwater | Produced by Gina Crow, Sebastian Galasso, Yanasa Creative Group, Tiare Ribeaux | Starring Saturn Risin9, Star Amerasu, Jocquese Whitfield, Aubrey Gail Ferreira, Sissy Slays
How to Carry Water
Directed by Sasha Wortzel | 2023 | 15 min
The boundless beauty of bodies in water is captured by Shoog McDaniel, a fat, queer, disabled photographer in northern Florida's freshwater springs. For over a decade, Shoog's photos have transformed perceptions of fat bodies. This film immerses audiences in a world of fat beauty and liberation, highlighting marginalized bodies, including water, as sacred.
Executive Produced by J Wortham | Produced by Colleen Cassingham, Jess Devaney, Anya Rous | Starring Shoog McDaniel, Matias Herrera, Melba Martinez, Anna Stein
Boléro
Directed By Nans Laborde-Jourdàa | 2023 | 17 min
Fran is in his hometown to rest and visit his mother. Following the jerky rhythm of Bolero, this journey along the paths of memory and desire will lead him and the whole village to a joyfully chaotic climax.
Screenplay by Nans Laborde-Jourdàa | Produced by Margaux Lorier | With Gabriele Moratti, Francesco Melzi D'Eril | Starring François Chaignaud, Muriel Laborde-Jourdàa, Mellie Laborde-Jourdàa
Entre Amigxs
Directed By Lío Mehiel and Robert Nachman | 2023 | 7 min
In Entre Amigxs, co-directors Lío Mehiel and Robert Nachman spotlight five trans and gender expansive artists living in Mexico City, compiled from Super 8 footage, 16MM film, and camcorder clips of moments between friends. Translated as Between (queer) Friends, the film engages with the individual journeys that contribute to a sense of collective freedom, exploring a community forging a space for themselves outside the dominant paradigm – through art, community, queerness, and living beyond labels.
Produced by Dulcinee DeGuere, Russell Kahn, Lío Mehiel and Robert Nachman | Starring Angel, Huma Roja, Julie Fuentes, Natan De Jesus, Suir BM, Torina Moreno aka Perdid
Love, Barbara
Directed By Brydie O'Connor | 2022 | 15 min
A short documentary about the iconic legacy of pioneering lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, through the lens and love of her partner of over 30 years, Florrie Burke.
Produced by Brydie O'Connor, Myriam Schroeter | Starring Barbara Hammer, Florrie Burke
Wouldn't Make It Any Other Way
Directed by Hao Zhou | 2024 | 21 min
Having built a colorful queer life in Iowa, a costume designer returns to their island hometown, Guam, to make costumes for a children's theater show and reconnect with distant parents.
Executive Produced by Caitlin Mae Burke | Produced by Tyler Hill | Starring Marc Marcos
About The Directors
Min Soo Park is a South Korean film director based in New York City. He has established himself as an award-winning documentary and music video/commercial director, with a unique approach that prioritizes narrative storytelling, character development, and experimental film language. He loves making portrait documentaries.
Tiare Ribeaux is a Kānaka ‘Ōiwi filmmaker and creative producer based in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Her films disrupt conventional storytelling methods by employing magical realist explorations of spirituality, labor, and the environment to critique both social and ecological imbalances. Her films use components of speculative fiction and fantasy to reimagine both our present realities and future trajectories of healing, queerness, lineage, and belonging. Ribeaux’s work traverses between the mundane and dreamworlds - creating stories around transformation and how our bodies are inextricably linked to land and water systems. She has shown work both nationally and internationally, and has won numerous grants and awards for her artistic leadership including the NDN Radical Imagination Grant, the Native Lab Fellowship and Indigenous Film Fund from Sundance, two New and Experimental Works Grants from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Building Demand for the Arts Grant from the Doris Duke Foundation, the Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund, and the Center for Cultural Innovation, among others.
Sasha Wortzel uses video, sculpture, installation, and sound to explore how this country’s past and present are inextricably linked through resonant spaces and their hauntings. Raised in South Florida and based in New York City, Wortzel specifically attends to sites and stories systematically erased or ignored from these regions’ histories. Wortzel’s films have screened at the MOMA DocFortnight, True/False, BAMcinemaFest, Wexner Center for the Arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Berlinale, among others. Solo exhibitions include Dreams of Unknown Islands at Cooley Memorial Art Gallery with Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR (2022) and Oolite Arts, Miami Beach, FL (2021). Their work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at the New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and The Kitchen, New York; and SALTS, Birsfelden. Wortzel has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, and Doc Society. Wortzel’s film This Is An Address (2020) is distributed by Field of Vision. Happy Birthday Marsha! (2018; co-director Tourmaline) won special mention at Outfest and is distributed by Frameline. Wortzel’s work is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum of Harlem, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, and Miami Dade County Art in Public Places.
Nans Laborde-Jourdàa, filmmaker and actor, has acted in films under the direction of Sophie Fillières, Julie Lopez-Curval, Sébastien Téot. He owns with Margot Alexandre the company TORO TORO, writes and directs several shows. In 2018, he directed between Japan and France Looking for Reiko, a short film produced by Margaux Lorier. In 2021, he directed the short film Léo by night produced by Paraiso Production, selected in Clermont-Ferrand, FIFIB and pre-selected for the César 2023.
Robert Nachman is a director and dop based in Los Angeles, California. They are a graduate of American Film Institute and have had their work featured in film festivals around the world (SXSW, Tribeca, Clermont Ferrand, Seattle, Atlanta, Palm Springs, AFI Fest & Outfest) . Their work has received a BAFTA for Student Live Action as well as won a Student Academy Award. Additionally, their work has been featured on NOWNESS, Short of The Week & selected as a VIMEO Staff Pick.
Lío Mehiel is an actor, artist, and filmmaker. Lío made their feature film debut starring in Sundance 2023’s Mutt. Their critically acclaimed performance earned them the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award in Acting, making them the first trans actor to ever win the award. The film can currently be streamed on Netflix. Most recently, Lío returned to Sundance 2024, starring opposite Leslie Grace, Sasha Calle and Residente in In the Summers, which won the festival’s top honor of Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. As a filmmaker, Lío is a co-founder of Voyeur Productions. Their most recent short, Entre Amigxs, can now be seen on NOWNESS. Lío is currently the producer and creative director of the transgender sculpture collection, Ancient Futures/Angels. The works most recently showed at GUTS Gallery in London and can now be seen at Charleston in the UK. Their piece Arcade Amerikana was included in the list of 10 Best Immersive Shows in NYC by Time Out and Gothamist.