Meet The Filmmakers Featured in Creative Medicine
In place of this year’s BABES FEST, we recently launched our Creative Medicine Series. :) As a series of virtual and open-air events, Creative Medicine is our slow response to a rapidly changing world.
On November 6, you can tune in from anywhere for three hours of independent film from six women directors in the Texas South, curated by us.
Screening a combination of shorts and feature films, the night’s showcase will span from experimental to comedic to documentary—and this year's featured filmmakers include Chelsea Hernandez, Meghan Ross, Chinwe Okorie, Evelyn Ngugi (Evelyn From The Internets), Brittany Reeber and Emily Basma. Read on to learn more about them, their work and featured films in Creative Medicine.
MEET THE FEATURED FILMMAKERS:
WHO: Chinwe Okorie
Chinwe Okorie is a Nigerian-born writer, director, and editor in Austin, TX. At age six, she immigrated to the United States and watched her first film, Titanic. It was then that her love affair with cinema began. In college, her student-run TV station Topper TV received The Rising Star Award, and Study Breaks magazine featured Chinwe as their Next Big Thing in 2014. After college, Chinwe went on to write, direct, and edit short films including her most recent film, Lovebites, which is currently distributed by Issa Rae Presents.
Chinwe’s Featured Film: LOVEBITES—currently distributing with Issa Rae Presents—follows one disorienting day in a young Black woman’s relationship with her boyfriend. The arthouse film employs split screens and a chilling audiovisual environment to raise questions about the nature of modern dating culture. The film depicts a Black twenty-something who just can’t seem to stay on the same page as her boyfriend, or even herself. Cat (Khali Sykes) has a mission to accomplish, and the audience is left to find out what it is until the very end of the film. Ukairo Ukairo stars alongside Sykes as her boyfriend, Chidi.
Photo by Bill Sallans.
WHO: CHELSEA HERNANDEZ
Chelsea Hernandez is an 8-time Emmy winning director, producer and editor in the Lone Star region. She has worked in television since the ripe age of nine, hosting and co-producing a children's educational TV program with her mother. Recently, Chelsea completed her first feature documentary, Building the American Dream which premiered at SXSW and was financially supported by the Ford Foundation | JustFilms, Latino Public Broadcasting, Tribeca Film Institute, Firelight Media, Marcy Garriott, City of Austin Cultural Arts Division, Bay Area Video Coalition, Seed & Spark, and Austin Film Society. The film had its television broadcast debut on PBS on September 15, 2020. In 2019, Chelsea was selected as a Line Hotel / Big Medium Artist in Residence and lived and worked at the Line Hotel on a student debt art exhibition and podcast. She is currently in development on a feature documentary and fiction film, along with co-producing the New Orleans South Pitch Runner-Up short film IN TOW, directed by Sharon Arteaga.
Chelsea’s Featured Film: BUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM is a feature documentary that follows three immigrant families who are rising up to seek justice and equality in an industry rife with exploitation. Across Texas, an unstoppable construction boom drives urban sprawl and luxury high-rises. Its dirty secret: abuse of immigrant labor. Building the American Dream captures a turning point as a movement forms to fight widespread construction industry injustices. Grieving their son, a Mexican family campaigns for a life-and-death safety ordinance. A Salvadorian electrician couple owed thousands in back pay fights for their children’s future. A bereaved son battles to protect others from his family's preventable tragedy. A story of courage, resilience and community, the film reveals shocking truths about the hardworking immigrants who build the American Dream, from which they are excluded.
WHO: EVELYN NGUGI
Evelyn Ngugi aka Evelyn from the Internets is a humor writer, digital storyteller, producer, and speaker based in Austin, Texas. She joined YouTube back in 2008, and today her channel has about 13 million views and 205,000 subscribers. She makes a grab bag of content, from travel vlogs and silly beauty guru-esque tutorials to funny first generation American stories and Black pop culture commentary. In 2017, she was a YouTube Creators For Change fellow, and received a grant to produce positive content that makes our world a better place. Naturally, she chose to talk to a puppet and wear a wig. She currently co-hosts and writes Say It Loud, a PBS Digital Studios show about Black histories and cultures. You can follow her on Instagram at @evelynfromtheinternets.
Evelyn’s Featured Film: HELLO, TIM chronicles a young woman participates in a documentary to explain the cautious relationship she has with the government agent she believes is tapping her devices. Hello, Tim premiered at Buffer Festival 2019 in Toronto, Canada and won the "Excellence In Comedy" award. You can watch the trailer for Hello, Tim here.
WHO: BRITTANY REEBER
Brittany Reeber is an award-winning filmmaker and producer. Her work encompasses music videos, projection, performance and short films in both documentary, narrative and something in-between. Originally from Florida, she is endlessly inspired by the Sunshine State and the ways in which it reflects the best and worst parts of humanity and our precarious relationship to the natural world. Her films are dark, funny and occasionally incorporate a choreographed dance routine.
Brittany’s Featured Film: THE CHEAP SEATS, a film by award-winning filmmaker and producer Brittany Reeber, is currently screening virtually around the country. Funded by the Austin Film Society, Kodak and American Documentary, it explores a real life psychic community in central Florida through a narrative approach that blends fact with fiction. Donna thinks psychics are just out to get her money, but she begrudgingly agrees to take Julianne to Cassadaga, Florida, the self-proclaimed “psychic capital of the world” where her skepticism is put to the test in this docu-narrative short starring Laura Cayouette (Queen Sugar, Django Unchained, Kill Bill Vol. 2) and a real-life Cassadaga medium, Nellie Conner. You can watch the trailer for The Cheap Seats here.
WHO: MEGHAN ROSS
Meghan Ross is a writer, producer, director, comedian, and activist. She’s the host of the all-women and non-binary late night show, That Time of the Month, as well as the weekly Instagram Live series No One Asked For This. Her first short film, An Uncomfortable Woman, premiered at Hollywood International Diversity Film Festival and her latest short film, If You Ever Hurt My Daughter, I Swear to God I’ll Let Her Navigate Her Own Emotional Growth, premiered on The New Yorker, featuring voiceover by Jon Hamm. Her writing has appeared in VICE’s Broadly, Reductress, The Toast, IFC, and Slackjaw.
Meghan’s Featured Film: AN UNCOMFORTABLE WOMAN is a dark comedy short film about Dylan, a 33-year-old woman experiencing a transitional period of her life. After the sudden death of her mother followed by the end of her long-term engagement, Dylan becomes obsessed with a foreboding thought: Don’t all bad things happen in threes? Sensing another tragedy lurks around the corner, Dylan must navigate her fear of being alone, the male species, and an unwanted house party, all while armed with questionable yet endearing support from her childhood best friend. (This screening will mark An Uncomfortable Woman’s Texas premiere.)
WHO: EMILY BASMA
Emily Basma is an Austin based photographer and filmmaker who explores myth, folklore, and iconography through a feminine gaze. Emily loves creating beautiful and atmospheric filmscapes that hopefully reminds the viewer of their most pleasant dreams.
Emily’s Short Film: SEEDS is a 16mm debut short film retelling of the Greek myth of Persephone through the lens of an American Tall Tale. The focus of the story is shifted to Persephone, allowing her the autonomy to decide her own fate.
LOOKING FOR MORE? Meet some of the Filmmakers-to-Watch in OUR NETWORK. :)
WHO: ERA MING
Era Ming is an agender queer of East Asian descent who currently resides in California. They are a genre writer who is interested in marginalized/neurodivergent characters searching for the truth, and they just finished a TV pilot about bringing back the dead to do good. You can follow Era on Twitter at @waxinglight.
Era’s short film, Tincture, is a magical realist thriller and an ode to queer longing, redemption, and the emotional memory of sacred objects.
WHO: Valarie Gold
Valarie Gold is a filmmaker born and raised in Austin, Texas. She received her undergraduate degree in film where she did a variety of editing and producing roles on short narratives. Nowadays, her film work focuses on telling stories through symbolism and experimental mediums. One thing that she’s recently acknowledged is that filmmaking does not have to be for an audience. Be yourself and create art because it's an expression that is worth expressing— it doesn't have to be anything more than that. Valarie is currently a graduate student at UT Austin, getting her Masters in Media Studies and her secondary English Teacher Certification. Her goal is to focus on youth agency through media production and literacy in public education.
Valarie’s latest project, Limerence Sucks You Dry, is a short reflection on toxic relationships. She made this film as an emotional release, with the intent of healing and finding internal growth. Plus, Super 8 cameras and film are fun to work with.
WANT TO ATTEND CREATIVE MEDICINE?
You can RSVP for the virtual film showcase here. To find out more about Creative Medicine and the events within the series, head to bossbabes.org/creativemedicine.