Outfest Fusion Film Festival 2023

The Outfest Fusion Film Festival is one of the premiere spots that showcases, affirms and supports QTBIPOC storytellers. The festival runs from March 24th to April 2nd in Los Angeles (with virtual screenings available). Pay special attention to the short films programming-- there you can find some true gems and catch emerging filmmakers shine in that format. 

Here are some intriguing films that stand out...

Hold Onto Me directed by Ravjvi Desai and Te Shima Brenen.

A documentary celebrating grassroots activist Mother LaTravious, a Black Trans femme matriarch whose journey from caterpillar to a butterfly began in her 30s.

Where Do We Go from Here directed by LaQuan Lewis. 

On the eve of Jamila and Rae’s one-year anniversary, Rae receives a voicemail from her ex-lover.

This Place directed by V.T. Nayani. 

Kawenniióhstha pursues her dreams of being a poet by moving to Toronto: the city where her estranged Iranian father happens to live. Malai also estranged from her father, but now that he's battling terminal cancer, she begins tries to repair her relationship with him, the one remaining link she has to her Tamil roots. When the two young women lock eyes in a laundromat, inexplicable sparks fly. As they grow closer, the weight of family and culture — which bear legacies of loss, migration, and displacement — complicate the growing intimacy they share.

I Identify As Me direted by Tina Colleen and Monick Monell. 

A chorus of queer and trans BIPOC reflects on how the intersectionalities of gender and people are infinite. 

For more info on the Outfest Fusion Film Festival visit their website.  

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Heavenly Brown Body

The opening line of Leslie Foster's Heavenly Brown Body makes a bold statement, with gorgeous cinematography to match. This experimental short film is a perfect visual Queer Anthem for the current times. You get four frames of lush and poetic visuals woven together as one, to create a dreamy tapestry of queer lives, presented in a harmonious aesthetic worthy of a big screen experience.

Heavenly Brown Body is one of the best short films of Outfest 2020. It's the kind of relevant, and artistic narrative that the LGBTQ+ community needs to celebrate and bring to the forefront of the movement. Leslie Foster is an indie filmmaker that should to be on your radar, and I am delighted to see where his career goes next.

For those fatigued by white lesbian seaside films becoming the "new face" of LGBTQ representation in cinema, let the beauty of Heavenly Brown Body be a short remedy, and reminder, that Black and BIPOC narratives rightfully deserve exquisitely shot feature films that showcase longing and love in epic coastal dramas as well. 

Also, of note, Heavenly Brown Body was filmed on location on "unceded Gabrielino-Tongva and Chumash territory." Hollywood desperately needs more Indigenous representation in film & TV. I would love to see more LGBTQ+ stories emerge that center on the Indigenous experience. 

Bottom line: Heavenly Brown Body is a film worth celebrating!

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