Friday, June 23rd at 8pm
My Best Day Screening (dir. Erin Greenwell)

The feature film My Best Day, written and directed by Erin Greenwell, follows a receptionist whose life is turned upside down when the father she never knew calls for a refrigerator repair.

Saturday, June 24 at 4pm
QAM Alumni Shorts Screening

An afternoon program of short films by alumni of Queer|Art|Mentorship covers a wide range of subjects in a variety of formats, including: a documentary about The Clit Club set in New York's Meatpacking District in the 1990s ("Grit and Grind", co-directed by Sasha Wortzel); an animated film about a zombie nurse who struggles with her identity and job ("SANDRA", dir. Mylo Mendez); and a narrative film about a young Mennonite who risks his life to find love and freedom in the city ("Unicorn", dir. Rodrigo Bellott). Other films in this program include "Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito" directed by Arisledya Dilone and "The Strange Ones" co-directed by Lauren Wolkstein, which inspired the 2017 feature film of the same title to be released soon.

Still from "Grit and Grind"
(co-directed by Sasha Wortzel)

Saturday, June 24 at 8pm
Special Screening of M.F.A. (dir. Natalia Leite)

Natalia Leite's 2017 feature film M.F.A. follows an art student who taps into a rich source of creative inspiration after the accidental slaughter of her rapist.

Still from "Unicorn" (dir. Rodrigo Bellott)

Still from "The Strange Ones"
(co-directed by Lauren Wolkstein)

Still from "Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito" (dir. Arisleyda Dilone)

Still from "SANDRA" (dir. Mylo Mendez)

ERIN GREENWELL

Erin Greenwell wrote and directed the feature film My Best Day, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. Her other directing endeavors include Oh Come On, a punk DIY performance video for Kathleen Hanna’s band The Julie Ruin and The Golden Age of Hustlers, featuring Justin Vivian Bond’s remake of the iconic song written by legendary punk chanteuse Bambi Lake. In 2006, Greenwell formed Smithy Productions, a production company, with the aim of cultivating talents from the queer/independent art community under the umbrella of narrative and documentary storytelling.

NATALIA LEITE

Natalia Leite's feature film debut Bare, starring Dianna Agron and Paz De La Huerta, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2015 and was released by IFC and Paramount Pictures. She is a contributor to Vice Media and a co-creator of the show "Be Here Nowish." Her work has been described as having "a bracing, assertive style" (Variety), "emotional intelligence" (LA Times), and as "cementing the reign over highly stylized, sexually progressive dramas" (Slate). Her latest feature film M.F.A. just premiered at SXSW.

SASHA WORTZEL

Sasha Wortzel is an artist and filmmaker working primarily in time-based media. Her work explores the politics of space in relation to race, gender, and queer desire. Sasha has recently presented work at the Berlin International Film Festival, DOC NYC, Outfest LA, Newfest, BFI Flare, Tribeca Interactive, Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, A.I.R. Gallery, Cooper Gallery, the Guggenheim Lab, and New Museum. Her work has been supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Art Matters Foundation, the Astraea Foundation’s Global Arts Fund and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). She is a 2012-2013 Fellow of filmmaker Ira Sachs’ Queer|Art|Mentorship, and is currently a participant in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace program. Sasha received her MFA from Hunter College.

ARISLEYDA DILONE

Arisleyda Dilone makes film work about her life and her family. Born in Santiago de Los de Caballeros, Dominican Republic, she spent her formative years in a hillside village outside of the city of Santiago. At the age of seven she was brought to New York and raised in a suburb of Long Island. She is the first college graduate in her family. She was a 2012 Jerome Foundation-Travel and Study Grant Fellow, a 2014 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow and a 2015-2016 Queer|Art|Mentorship Fellow, in which she completed this short film: Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito / Mom and Me and My Little Rooster. Arisleyda is a member of Diverse Filmmakers Alliance and Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective.

MYLO MENDEZ

Mylo Mendez is a Texas-born video artist currently based in Brooklyn. Hir work uses humor, narrative, and characters with aberrant bodies to navigate identity, social and geographical borders, and history. Mendez was a 2015-2016 Queer|Art|Mentorship film fellow, has screened at the MIXNYC: Queer Experimental Film Festival, and has been featured in group shows in New York City, Austin, and Dallas. Ze received hir MFA from Parsons The New School for Design.

LAUREN WOLKSTEIN

Christopher Radcliff and Lauren Wolkstein are NYC-based filmmakers best known for their award-winning short films, including The Strange Ones, Jonathan’s Chest, Social Butterfly, and Cigarette Candy which have screened at hundreds of film festivals worldwide including Sundance, SXSW, Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand, AFI Fest, and more. Their first feature film, The Strange Ones (an adaptation of their short film of the same name) premiered at SXSW 2017.

RODRIGO BELLOTT

Rodrigo Bellott was born in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. His breakout film, Sexual Dependency won over 15 awards in over 65 film festivals around the world and was also Bolivia’s first film competing for “Best Foreign Language Film” at the 2004 Academy Awards. VARIETY magazine named Bellott as one of the “TOP TEN Latin American Talents to Watch”. His most recent short film (as producer / writer / director), Unicorn, had it’s world premiere at the Miami International Film Festival and was subsequently invited to Screen out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014.