Lullabies for the Distance/d is an experimental film traversing vast geographic and psychological terrains of West Africa and the Americas to suture spaces of liberatory diasporic connection. In dialogue with historical Black radical visions of pan-African unity, this project updates and queers the question of when, where, and how people of African descent globally find and forge spaces of liberation and safety to be and breathe fully and freely. Through its process of making and presentation, the film contributes to a wild future of increased understanding, harmony, unity, solidarity, and power-building across the African Diaspora. I am uplifting the necessity of broadening the parameters of pan-African discourse to explicitly include and hold space for those of us who are queer. This project grows out of my own ongoing journey of research, making, dialogue, and travel tracing notions of Black utopia across place, space, and time. It is informed by family histories of migration encompassing East and West Africa, the Caribbean, and the US, and my ongoing personal search for a space of belonging and refuge across multiple spaces.

The experimental film will be shown internationally in tandem with community discussions to further animate its themes and offer space for personal connections to be explored and shared. This mid-length film will combine analog and digital moving image and sound techniques, poetics, the language of the body, the language of water, the wisdom of plants, the echoes of different landscapes, and performative sequences to dream beyond distance and stitch together connection.