ZWARTE IBIS

ZWARTE IBIS portrays a young Black woman’s quest for intimacy in a world where the boundaries between the individual and the collective, the political and the personal, the past and the present, become ever blurrier. The community-based short film is an afro-surrealistic reverie, poetically re-imagining our contemporary conceptions of relationships with the self and with imagined communities through a questioning of historically and culturally imposed views on Black people’s intimate lives in the diaspora. The film draws together stories and images from months of collective discussion, and includes contributions from over 80 members of the Afro-Dutch community working across writing, acting, costuming, filming, and editing.

Premiering in January 2024 at Melkweg, Amsterdam in collaboration with Caribbean Creativity⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠ and Africadelic⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠, the opening weekend program was accompanied by a welcoming DJ set, singing bowl performance, and post-screening panel discussions on black intimacy featuring members of the cast and crew. Since then, the film has circulated widely through the festival circuit with screenings in Christchurch, NZ; Kigali, RW (All African Independent Film Festival⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠); New York, US (PrideFull Fest: QTBIPOC Film Festival⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠); Accra, GH (Black Star International Film Festival⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠); London, UK (Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠); Cuiabá, BR (MT Queer Premia); Saint George, GD (12N, 61W Grenada Film Festival); Washington D.C., US (Afrofuturist Femmes Film Festival); Vancouver, CA (Black Independent Film Festival); and San Francisco, US (Silicon Valley Queer Film Festival). In Kigali, ZWARTE IBIS was winner for Best Cinematography, and in Washington D.C., the film won Best Experimental Short.