Dilemma of a Bird in a Mirror

The 2020 film grant will support "Dilemma of a Bird in a Mirror," a soft-horror fever dream where a femme's psyche splits as she struggles through societal expectations on the eve of her birthday. This is an approximately 25-minute fiction short film, featuring an all POC (people of color) cast, addressing identity, conformity, disability, mental health, and transformation. Drawing on absurdist theater, existential nihilism, queerness, and their intersections with disability, this film is influenced by the underground aesthetics of filmmakers like Jodorowsky, Lynch, and La Nouvelle Vague experimentation to tell the story of a main character's nervous breakdown and eventual recovery and transformation.