CG — I want to talk about the cinematography for a moment, which is sort of dreamy and magical and atmospheric. Angel, you mentioned this otherworldliness as an element you wanted to bring into the film. And there’s a softness, too—an intimacy. Could you speak a little bit more to the creative and art direction of the film and what you were hoping to do with it?
AA — A lot of the inspiration for our initial ideas actually came from some drawings that Jordan had made. That’s where we came up with the royal fantasy vibes. But the entire walkthrough of the film is deeply connected to our experiences today, spending time together, sharing dinners, being in community. I think it’s really beautiful how we were able to create a fantasy out of something that’s really real to us.
KK — Those drawings that I did formed one of the initial concepts we had for the film, which was this extremely experimental, hyperreal thing that was even more fantasy than it is now. But through our process talking with one another we arrived at something that felt more grounded in how we live but that was still fantastical. My style as a director and cinematographer has always been inspired by Wong Kar-wai films, where it’s very dreamlike and centered in these big cities. And then when you see the city in person, it almost doesn’t feel real. I also wanted to bring into the film certain elements that we share in our intimacy together, like how it’s always a double cheek kiss when we greet. And when we’re around each other, there are sounds you hear: our nails clacking, our heels kitting the floor, the sound of a kiss on both cheeks. There’s so much sensory to the way we interact that’s uniquely us, and I think it narrates our sisterhood in a way that words can’t. So I really wanted to hone in on those moments with the wide angle lenses and create that fantasy with things feeling larger than life, but also something that people still find is familiar.
CG — I love that you talk about Wong Kar-wai, because one of the central themes in his work is this sort of urban loneliness, these love-sick characters drifting about in cities they feel alienated by. But what I love about this film that you made is that we don’t feel that loneliness at all, because it’s invested in togetherness and in community. And it’s interesting, because the video is filmed in Harlem, which was a black cultural mecca in the 1920s and 30s—a period referred to as the Harlem Renaissance, when there was an artistic rebirth. Some of you live there, or have lived there in the past. Can you talk about the significance of Harlem to the film?
KK — I think Angel, as a native New Yorker, you should talk about this first…
AA — Harlem was deeply connected to our ideation process, because we were looking at the way we move through space and what that might make other people feel. We were considering recreating all the chatter we overhear when we go out, because we can’t help but to disrupt a room when we walk around. One thing that always happens is the staring. But we decided that that isn’t important to us. It’s not what makes us. When we wake up in the morning, we choose ourselves, and the people who stare and talk don’t know who they are, so they can’t choose themselves. We ended up in a mode that really empowers and hopefully inspires other people to fully embody themselves.
KK — For me, not being someone from New York City, the Harlem Renaissance and the neighborhood of Harlem have always been very influential. I’ve worked in ballroom spaces and jazz spaces and a lot of places uptown that are still to this day very evocative of the culture, especially of trans and queer people. Where we shot, in Angel’s neighborhood, is such an interesting intersection, because Central Park is right there. We see Sinn in Central Park in the film, which is a big symbol of gentrification and the whiteness in New York City. But you go a little bit north, right there to that corner we filmed at, and it’s this center of blackness and Latin American people. So it’s a juxtaposition on one street corner that’s representative of the space we take up constantly in life.
CG — When you were thinking through the film's narrative and the story you wanted to tell, what was the first scene that came to you?
AA — I think it was the liquor store. We went from thinking about possibly designing an entire space where they would be huge to figuring out how we could make it fantasy without the excessiveness or the craziness of having to do all that. Like, how do we simplify? We thought about possibly going into the liquor store with the clicking of the nails and Jordan’s outfit possibly moving through the room and touching the bottles. That was really exciting for me. That was the first time I started to see everything unfold. Because then, we thought about Sinn and Srey Sral at the park…
SC — I remember them talking about having Srey in it, and then I created an outfit where my corset lacing was part of her leash, and I think, for me, that was when I was like, “Okay, I’ve never felt more like myself.” And then seeing us all together, the idea of us walking onto the roof—it reminds me of us getting into an Uber to go to Nowadays, like, “Oh, bitch, we late!” It feels like a vlog. When we were writing everything out and had a straight story to tell, we realized this is practically what we do every day.
CG — I want to talk about sisterhood, because there’s this felt and resonant warmth to the film that I think is a testament to your bonds. The joy feels genuine, not acted. Can you maybe talk about friendship and sisterhood and the role that plays in the film and your lives?
KK — I feel like we really came together in a work environment. The first time I met all of them was through the first film that we worked on together, Toxic. It became an organic sisterhood that has informed a lot of my own identity in the last year, and it’s answered a lot of questions and framed things in a different way. Being here, I’m so far from my biological family. They’re all in California or various other parts of the country. And I’ve moved around my whole life. So I’ve never been in a community, or or had a big family that was around me. So to have this was very gratifying, and the film came out of it. It was this stream of consciousness thing that never really ended until now that we’re done with the film, because we just kept pouring what we were experiencing into the film and it had its own life.
AA — I think what brought us together was our creativity, but what holds us together is our connectivity. We hold each other accountable, and we choose to be patient with each other, which is something a lot of us didn’t have growing up. But we recognize that the power we hold in our unity is something we want to harness and protect. So I’m grateful to have them on my team, not only to write history but to always empower me and encourage me to be a better person.
DP — I think our sisterhood really informed a lot of my healing. I learn so much about myself by having me reflected back in the girls all the time, and our sisterhood gave me access to parts of myself that I’ve looked over or resisted. It’s a space of love and safety. And if you’re lucky enough in a lifetime to come into your tribe and hold space for each other, that’s really special. We’ve fought for so many years to get to a place of being free, and all of our moments together are a celebration of that triumph and of getting to the point where we get to choose how we want to live. I moved around a lot as a child, and I was always adapting. I was never grounded in one space. So to have a strong group of friends helping each other and growing together, waking up determined to uplift each other—I think it’s really beautiful.