The Sundance Institute has revealed the six artists participating in its 2024 Trans Possibilities Intensive, and IndieWire has the exclusive details.
The Sundance Institute Trans Possibilities Intensive is a three-part event held virtually from July 22-24, focusing on advancing trans storytellers of color and their projects. This year, the intensive welcomes six storytellers who will participate in peer-led creative advisement to further their work: Khaleb Brooks, Kyle Casey Chu, Mariales Diaz, Gulet Ahmed Isse, Sepi Mashiahof, and AX Mina. This year’s creative advisors include Zackary Drucker (“The Stroll”), River Gallo (“Ponyboi”), Lyric Cabral (“P.O.V.”), and Roberto Fatal (“Do Digital Curanderas Use Eggs in Their Limpias?”).
The program is now in its third year, and per the Sundance Institute, the Intensive offers “direct support through project-based granting for the advancement of trans-led projects at all stages of their life cycles” and regularly identifies emerging trans storytellers to provide creative and professional development opportunities. Earlier in 2024, the Trans Possibilities Intensive was announced as a grantee from the Jerome Foundation. Fellows are selected through a nominations-based application, and 2024 has seen the most nominations in the history of the Intensive, according to the Institute.
“The response to the Intensive — both from applicants and the industry — proves how vital creating spaces like the Trans Possibilities Intensive is. Visibility has never been enough nor has it been our sole goal; we need sustainability, intentionality, and opportunity and that is what our program uniquely offers. Uplifting a variety of trans voices and offering these storytellers intentional resources and a lasting community opens up opportunities for the artists and audiences eager to hear their stories alike,” said Moi Santos, Sundance Institute’s Manager of Equity, Impact, and Belonging. “This year’s cohort will be in great hands with the Creative Advisors as they gather to refine their craft and reflect on their careers, and the Sundance Institute looks forward to championing them well beyond the duration of the program.”
During the Intensive Fellows will participate in conversations including a fireside chat with “The Matrix” filmmaker Lilly Wachowski, who will discuss her career and her work with Anarchists United.
At the end of the three-day intensive, fellows and the general public have a chance to join an exclusive conversation on Sundance Collab — Sundance Institute’s digital space for artists to learn from experts — called “Toward Trans Possibilities: Transgender Storytelling with Zackary Drucker and River Gallo.”
Previous fellows of the intensive include Gallo, who has since completed and premiered the feature “Ponyboi” with Intensive support, StormMiguel Florez, who was selected as a 2024 NALAC Artist Grantee, and Malik Ever, whose film “Gorditx” won Best Narrative Short at the Seattle Trans Film Festival. Alumni advisors of the intensive include Sam Feder, Yance Ford, Tourmaline, Rowan Haber, Felix Endara, Aitch Alberto, Chase Joynt, and Sydney Freeland.
The fellows selected for the 2024 Trans Possibilities Intensive are below, with language courtesy of Sundance Institute:
Khaleb Brooks (Writer-Director) with “May the Road Rise Up to Meet You”(U.K.): A married woman and a transgender man navigate their desperation to love and be loved at a bus stop in London.
Khaleb Brooks is a filmmaker and visual artist centering ancestral memory and archival research. He has worked as a filmmaker with the UN, screened his short Black Boys Can Swim across the U.K., and most recently was an Open TV Fellow.
Kyle Casey Chu (Writer-Producer) with “After What Happened at the Library” (U.S.A.): After her Drag Story Hour is stormed by far-right extremists, an overwhelmed drag queen goes viral and struggles to find justice and resolution. Inspired by Kyle’s true experience.
Kyle Casey Chu (aka Panda Dulce) is a San Franciscan bigender author, screenwriter, and one of the founding queens of Drag Story Hour. Her writing has appeared on Vogue, MTV, VICE, and them.us and has earned awards from Sundance and SFFILM.
Mariales Diaz (Writer-Director) with “Today and Tomorrow” (U.S.A.): As two best friends embark on their after-school routine together, they are confronted by their attraction for one another for the first time.
Mariales Diaz is a gender-expansive Dominican writer, director, producer, and programmer living in New York. Their storytelling explores experiences that exist at the intersection of survival and love.
Gulet Ahmed Isse (Writer-Director-Actor)with“Khutbah”(U.S.A.): A would-be sheikh struggles to reconcile his faith, queerness, and a passion for rock ’n’ roll. When a death in the family radically derails the trajectory of his life, he must find a way to honor tradition without sacrificing his heart’s true desires.
Gulet Isse is a genderqueer Somali American artist hailing from a lineage of griot activists. A USC graduate in theater and narrative studies, Isse starred in season two of Little America and was a 2022 Lambda Literary fellow and 2023 Disruptors fellow.
Sepi Mashiahof (Writer-Director) with“Tell Me About The Fairies” (U.S.A.): Alienated by the sexual wonderland of college life, a sheltered queer Iranian “boy” has an encounter with fairies who curse him with an aroma that makes men hopelessly attracted to him as his body rots away like spoiled fruit.
Sepi Mashiahof is an Oakland-based Iranian American filmmaker, writer, and musician. Her work focuses on using the horror genre to explore queer monstrosity and the intersections between cultural diaspora and gender dysphoria.
AX Mina (Director-Producer) with “Rubbish: The Queer Kingdom of Leilah Babirye”(U.S.A., Italy, Uganda, U.K., France): “Rubbish: The Queer Kingdom of Leilah Babirye” tells the decade-long story of a queer artist-activist from Uganda transforming discarded rubbish into visions of liberation.
AX Mina (she/they) is a queer nonbinary filmmaker telling stories of healing and liberation through art, with work in places like the Museum of the Moving Image and MozFest. She produces the “Five and Nine” podcast and writes for Hyperallergic.
