Today the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the artists selected to participate in the Sundance Institute Trans Possibilities Intensive, a three-part event held online from July 22–24 focusing on the advancement of transgender storytellers of color and their projects. Created to provide a supportive environment for sharpening skills, developing community, and challenging the obstacles that continue to exclude transgender artists, this year the intensive will welcome six storytellers under the guidance of experienced creative and peer advisors. The fellows selected for 2024 are: 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?).
In its third year, the program continues to offer direct support through project-based granting for the advancement of trans-led projects at all stages of their life cycles, identify emerging trans talent, and provide custom creative and professional development opportunities. Earlier this year, the Trans Possibilities Intensive was announced as a grantee from the Jerome Foundation to continue supporting the invaluable role of transgender artists of color in making meaning, telling untold stories, and shifting worldviews. Fellows are selected through a nominations-based application, and 2024 has seen the most nominations in the history of the Intensive — a testament to the interest in opportunities centered, led, and focused around trans artists of color.
“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, 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 a variety of conversations including a fireside chat with Lilly Wachowski, talking about her own journey as a filmmaker and her work with Anarchists United.
At the conclusion of the three-day intensive, fellows and the general public have the opportunity to join an exclusive conversation on Sundance Collab — Sundance Institute’s digital space for artists to learn from experts and build a global filmmaking community — called Toward Trans Possibilities: Transgender Storytelling with Zackary Drucker and River Gallo. Moderated by Santos, this exclusive conversation with esteemed filmmakers Zackary Drucker (The Stroll) and River Gallo (Ponyboi) reflects on the possibilities that can emerge from authentic trans storytelling.
Previous fellows of the intensive include River Gallo, who has since completed and premiered the feature Ponyboi with Intensive support, StormMiguel Florez who was selected as a 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 Sundance Institute Trans Possibilities Intensive is supported by the Jerome Foundation. The Trans Possibilities Intensive is a part of our Sundance Institute Equity, Impact and Belonging program, made possible by support from The Walt Disney Company, Apple, Gold House, NBCUniversal, United Airlines, Golden Globe Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Rotten Tomatoes, The Harnisch Foundation, SAGIndie, and an anonymous donor.
The fellows selected for the 2024 Trans Possibilities Intensive are:
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.
