TIGHT: An exploration of the architectures of restriction. Curated by Gina Young.

Our protagonists – many of them queer, nonbinary, trans– find themselves trapped by the limits of the gendered gaze, of memory, of the Covid-19 shelter-in-place lockdown, or of mysterious situations beyond their control. Whether they find their way to freedom or not? May vary. 

Curator gina young (she/they) is an award-winning writer, director, performer, and curator. Their stage work, screen work, and curated events have been presented nationally and internationally from the Hammer Museum and REDCAT to punk clubs and gay bars across the U.S. and Europe. Room Tone, her screenwriting debut starring A League of Their Own’s Roberta Colindrez and directed by Whitney White, is currently making the film festival circuit as part of the anthology film Keep This Far Apart. gina is a winner of the Jane Chambers Award for Playwriting, the Humanitas/PLAY LA prize, and a two-time finalist for the Sherwood Award for boundary-pushing artists. Connect with gina and her production company SORORITY at ginayoung.com or @ginagenius on Instagram.

Creature

In the depths of her mind, pain takes the form of a creature. A love relationship unleashes the obscurity within, to evoke in the real world, a world of shadows.

María Silvia Esteve. Argentine director and film editor. She was awarded by the Spanish Association of Authors of Cinematography AEC, before debuting her career with "Silvia". Her documentary feature film had its world premiere at IDFA, received the Artistic Vision Award at Docaviv, and won at the Havana Festival, DocLisboa, among others.

• Year:2021
• Runtime:15:27
• Country:Argentina, Switzerland
• Director:María Silvia Esteve

Schindler House Haunting

Even as researchers disavow the influence of Japanese architecture on Austrian-American architect R.M. Schindler, the Schindler House evokes the haunted houses of Japanese Horror (J-horror) films, which shatter notions of useful domestic space, partitioning interior and exterior similarly to self and Other. 

In jas lin’s experimental video documentation of their live performance at Schindler House, they explore the confines of space and family structure by mutating the space into a haunted house where the values of the “American home” are turned inside out. Fear of the ghost is fear of the Other, both outside and inside of oneself— a gaze that turns queer, non-white, femme, wild bodies into ghosts. By embodying abjection, resistance, and revenge, lin collapses boundaries between human and Other and makes visible the repression and oppression of dominant social frameworks.

jas lin 林思穎 (they/them) stages exorcisms for purging choreographies of the learned body and shutting down internal and external surveillance cameras that suggest there is a Proper way to move through the world. their choreographies, films, workshops, and lectures have been shared around the world, including at MAK Center for Art + Architecture, Danshallerne Copenhagen, Kassel Dokfest, and Mitski’s Laurel Hell Tour.

• Year:2022
• Runtime:17 minutes
• Country:United States
• Director:jas lin

Safe at Home

A darkly funny stop motion short film about two roommates being "safe at home" during the COVID pandemic.

Zoë DeLeon & Michelle Calderon met while attending Florida State University's Screenwriting MFA program in 2016, and have been the best of friends ever since. With their production company, Joechelle Films, they tell stop-motion stories that are personal, darkly comedic, and full of whimsy and weirdness.

• Year:2022
• Runtime:4 minutes
• Country:United States
• Director:Zoë DeLeon & Michelle Calderon

Room Tone

"Room Tone" follows a character in dialogue with empty space, silence, a former lover, and their own body. It is gina young’s screenwriting debut.

"Room Tone" is an excerpt from KEEP THIS FAR APART, an anthology film commissioned by We The Women Collective about the effect of the Covid-19 shelter-in-place experience on a diverse group of women. All of the filming was done remotely by the actors on their smartphones during the lockdown. Starring Roberta Colindrez (Vida, A League of Their Own), and Directed by Obie Award Winner Whitney White, Room Tone is the debut screenplay of Humanitas/PLAY LA Prize Winner gina young.

• Year:2022
• Runtime:9 minutes
• Country:United States
• Director:Gina Young + We The Women

Suspension

Alone in the desert, a trans man flickers through memory and delusion as he wrestles with the guilt of his past mistakes. Consumed by isolation, he obsessively cares for a ghostly vision of Angel - the mother and lover he never had. But while Wolfie appears to be alone, he is unaware of a foreboding presence, surveilling him at all times. "Suspension" explores the psychological confinement that comes with alienation and sequestration.

Dulcinee DeGuere (she/her) is an editor turned writer/director who tells stories that challenge cinematic convention while still delivering emotional catharsis. The films she makes are mysterious, opaque, and center female and queer characters in genres like science fiction and horror. She’s committed to creating films that are queer in plot and character, but also in form and structure. As an editor, her work has screened at Sundance, OUTFEST, Fantasia, Newfest, and Palm Springs. She was chosen as one of Blackmagic Collective’s Directing Fellows for the First Frame Initiative. She is a co-founder of Voyeur Productions, which creates immersive experiences, narrative film, and TV. She works as the Systems Architect for the Bombay Beach Biennale, a renegade art festival that brings philosophy, visual art, music and performance to the shores of the Salton Sea.

• Year:2022
• Runtime:15 minutes
• Country:United States
• Director:Dulcinée DeGuere

Basic Needs

A spoken word film exploring the parallel between how we nurture plants, how we nurture ourselves, and how routine can nurture consciousness.

Karla Espino is a writer and director of comedy and drama films discussing the intricacies of life, self-growth, and societal expectations. As a Latina filmmaker, she continues to focus on underrepresented communities as well as inspire others to do the same.

• Year:2022
• Runtime:3 minutes
• Country:United States
• Director:Karla Espino

Princess

Princess portraits a resolving of identity for non-binary Vietnamese-American dancer Jason Vu as they revisit memories of desire from their childhood. Celebrating uninhibited queerness and reckoning with its violent histories, Vu finds themself at the crux of past, present, and future—discovering that sanctuary is not a place, but an action of remembering. Princess was led entirely by nonbinary/trans identifying artists, and is based on the therapeutic technique ‘tapping’, a form of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) that induces bilateral stimulation to cultivate a neural response optimal for healing and reprocessing trauma.

Jason Vu (he/them) is a nonbinary, Vietnamese-American movement artist and mind-body wellness practitioner based in New York City. B Gosse (she/they) is a transfemme, nonbinary art director, designer, and movement artist based in LA.

• Year:2021
• Runtime:8 minutes
• Country:United States
• Director:Jason Vu and B Gosse