The short film, “A Bird Hit My Window and Now I’m a Lesbian,” includes an impromptu bird funeral, after a mysterious girl shows up with the avian corpse at her doorstep. This changes the way a girl views herself, affirming her sapphic identity. It’s one of the 2025 Colin Higgins Youth Filmmaker Grant Recipients, announced by Frameline on April 21.
These grants are given to 25-and-under LGBTQ+ applicants who currently reside in the U.S. Along with the other grantees, who will each receive $15,000 for future film projects, Frameline49 will screen these shorts in its program, Outside Voices: New Leaders in Queer Cinema, Sspported by Colin Higgins Foundation, at the Roxie Theater on June 25.
The late Colin Higgins (1941-1988) was an acclaimed screenwriter and director of the classic cult film “Harold and Maude,” but also the enduring comedy “9 to 5,” and the film adaptation of the musical “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”
Diagnosed with HIV in 1985, he founded the Colin Higgins Foundation, “as a means of supporting LGBTQ+ youth for underserved communities by helping to fund programs and organizations that foster and build their leadership skills and empowerment,” such as The Trevor Project, The Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force, and Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement. Since 1988, the Foundation has awarded over 660 grants totaling over $6 million.
James Cass Rogers, president of the Colin Higgins Foundation, noted, “Colin was a consummate filmmaker, who wanted to help gay youth succeed. These grants are a perfect fit for his foundation. His memory will live on through these extraordinary young filmmakers.”
The two directors of “Bird…” are Carmela Murphy, who specializes in stop animation, fabrication, and screenwriting, and “adores telling narrative and fantastical stories that explore the weird and the wonderful,” and AJ Dubler, a stop-motion, 2D animator, and storyboard artist. Both directors “have a shared vision of telling compelling and nuanced stories, representing the queer community as complete human beings with complex emotions, relationships, and personalities.”
Another recipient is Remi Gabriel’s “Barbie Boy.” Samuel lives with his Abuela, copes with painful memories both real and surfaced, “as he reconciles the woman who loved him deeply with the one who left so much unsaid.”
Gabriel said in a press statement that she believes film is the ultimate exercise in empathy.
“Growing up one-half Latina, one-half Jewish, one-half straight, other-half queer, one-half of the inescapable human unit that is twinship, all my life I have always been categorized by a half of an infinitely, unknown whole. It is only through my art I have realized these dualities expand far past just personal identity, and permeate deep into the psyche of human nature.”
The third Outside Voices film is Daisy Friedman’s “Unholy.” Young adult Noa suffers from a complex gastrointestinal disorder. She attends her family’s Passover Seder after being put on a feeding tube for the first time. She’s confronted by pushy family members and food she cannot eat. Said Frameline of Friedman’s film, “Her history as a multi-organ transplant recipient has drawn her to create work that centers on the intersection of tradition, embodiment, and disability.”
The fourth grantee is Karina Dandashi’s “Baba I’m Fine” about Sama, who copes with romantic rejection by blasting music in her room, after her girlfriend cancels their Friday plans. Frameline describes it: “Their evening takes an unexpected turn as a message forces her to choose between authenticity and keeping up appearances.”
Dandashi is a first-generation Arab American Muslim writer, director, and actor, whose work explore nuances in identity through the intersection of family, religion, and culture in Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) and American Muslim communities.
Said Dandashi, “It was so thrilling as a queer Syrian American director to empower Arab talent to tell a story of queer messy rage, joy, and love for family that defies any box we’ve been assigned.” Dandashi credits Frameline with making her believe she could have a career as a filmmaker.
Allegra Madsen, Executive Director of Frameline, affirms the importance of film during this crisis time in our country’s history.
“As support of LGBTQ+ art –and artists in general– is being systematically dismantled, it falls on our community’s shoulder to protect the future of queer cinema, all while preserving its rich history. Frameline, along with the Colin Higgins Foundation, will continue to uplift LGBTQ+ youth and their vital stories.”
Tickets for Outside Voices and other Frameline49 programs will be available for Frameline members May 15, with general public tickets to follow on May 16.
http://www.frameline.org
http://www.colinhiggins.org