Frameline48: Across Time & Space – Black Queer Stories

This short film block encompasses the vastness of the Black diasporic experience transcending time and space, inspired by poet Nikki Giovanni’s proclamation, “the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.”

Short films showing in this program:

The Birth of Naikee

Directed by Clémentine Decremps

The film follows the trajectory of Naikee, a black transwoman activist, in her quest for identity and freedom. In addition to revisiting key elements of Naikee’s journey, the film aims to question the overwhelming heteronormative standards of a society too binary to erect an ode to diversity. By re-interpreting Botticelli’s painting “The Birth of Venus,” Naikee asserts her right to exist differently. (20 mins)

Chimera

Directed by Kryzz Gautier

Haunted by the past, a brilliant tech-addicted developer faces an impossible dilemma: recreate her ex-girlfriend in virtual reality or hold onto the crumbling relationship with her current one. From the director of Keep/Delete (Frameline46). (18 mins)

Grace

Directed by Natalie Jasmine Harris

Sixteen-year-old Grace (Jordan Rayanna Wells, The CW’s All American: Homecoming) prepares for her baptism in the rural 1950s South. When she learns she must repent before the ritual, Grace contemplates her romantic feelings toward her best friend Louise. Exquisitely filmed on 16mm, Grace explores the interiority of a Black queer girlhood over the course of a fleeting summer in the Black American South. Executive produced by Academy Award-nominated actor (and San Francisco native) Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and playwright/actor/educator Fanshen Cox, Grace celebrated its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. (13 mins)

If I’m Here It Is by Mystery

Directed by Clari Ribeiro

New Rio, 2054. Renowned witch Dahlia arrives at the port with a mission: to found the most powerful Clan that has ever existed and thus defeat the Order of Truth. In the future, many people are trans — but only a few are witches. From the visionary team behind A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here (Frameline46). (22 mins)

Saturn Risin9

Directed by Tiare Ribeaux & Jody Stillwater

Queer performance artist and musician Saturn Risin9 returns home to the Bay Area to share their journey of perseverance centering self discovery, healing and creative expansion poetically told through dance, visual narrative, performance, and documentary. (10 mins)

Expected Guests:

Natalie Jasmine Harris, Director (Grace)

Clari Ribeiro, Director (If I’m Here It Is by Mystery)

Bruna Linzmeyer, Actor (If I’m Here It Is by Mystery)

Tadáskía Morais, Actor (If I’m Here It Is by Mystery)

Éri Sarmet, Screenwriter (If I’m Here It Is by Mystery)

Tiare Ribeaux, Director (Saturn Risin9)

Saturn Risin9, Participant (Saturn Risin9)