2024 LINEUP
Scroll to meet each artist. Click here to explore daily schedules and tickets.
• FEATURED FILMS •
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ After We’re Gone explores our relationship with death and mourning through a conversation using interviews of different participants portrayed within physical miniature rooms. Each story is completely different, yet how each relates shows how connected the mourning process can be. In the end, there is comfort in the collective experience of mortality.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Made of felt, cat hair and hair dye, Saige Kanik is a stop-motion fabricator, animator, and theatrical prop designer from the forests of New England. Recently relocated to Austin, she graduated from the School of Film and Animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology with a Degree in Stop Motion Animation and a minor in 3D Studio Arts.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ In A Little Prayer, Gina has a spiritual experience in the bathroom after a night of clubbing. She expels more than just the evening's drinks.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER & WRITER ✹ Marliza Mendez is a passionate Tejana filmmaker who thrives in the vibrant Austin indie scene, bringing stories to life through her screenwriting and acting. She loves to tell comedy and dark-comedy stories centered around the Latinx/Tejano experience with themes of paranormal experiences, the afterlife, and the impacts of generational trauma.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Julia Relova is a queer Filipino-American producer and director based in Chicago. She is a co-founder of Rm. 19 Productions which produces short films, features, and events across the US including Chicago, Austin, and Los Angeles.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ Earth to KB is a documentary portrait of KB Brookins: a Black, queer, and trans writer and artist from Texas. The film explores the expansive worlds within KB's poetry, as well as moments shared with their wife, friends, and community in Austin.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Em Shapiro is a non-binary filmmaker based in Austin, Texas. Their documentary short films are created in collaboration across a variety of art disciplines, centering queer, trans and disabled creatives. Their work has screened at festivals such as BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, TRANSlations and Bucheon International Animation Festival.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ In Elephant!, a young Black girl befriends a wealthy but troubled classmate. Problems ensue.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Chinwe Okorie is a multi-genre writer & director who crafts stories rooted in reality and elevated by witty & absurdist observation. Her second film LOVEBITES was hand selected by Issa Rae to be featured on her YouTube Channel & her new film ELEPHANT!, a dark comedy about mental health in teens, premiered at the 2022 Austin Film Festival. She has received industry recognition from MovieMaker Magazine as a writer to watch and was nominated by the Austin Chronicles as Best Filmmaker in 2021.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ In JULIE BABY, mother-daughter-sister relationships are front and center in this story about what it means to be a woman in the world and the complicated ways we try to protect the ones we love.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Emily Grooms is a writer, director and casting director from Austin, Texas, now based in LA. She misses Vulcan Video and I Luv Video and even the Blockbuster on Guadalupe like she misses the days before the internet. She did grad school at UT Austin and is now the 2024 WIF Casting Fellow out in LA.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ LImbs of One Body is a 1-minute experimental dance piece, dedicated to "all who are denied the freedom to dance," was created in collaboration with Ani Bradberry's "Sun Poem" installation at the Seaholm Intake Facility and the Austin Asian American Film Festival. Selected as the pre-show bumper for the 2024 festival, the film sheds light on the ban on public dancing in Iran, intertwining themes of Persian and Texan heritage and the ongoing fight for human rights. A labor of love, this piece amplifies the voices of those struggling for freedom and equality.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Bita Ghassemi is an award-winning Iranian-American writer, director, and photographer from Austin, Texas, whose work bridges her Iranian-Texan identity and global experiences. As a co-founder of PILLARBOXED, one of Austin's only women, POC, and LGBTQ-led video production companies, she is committed to fostering an inclusive space for marginalized creatives while delivering powerful societal messages that champion human rights.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ Moon Moth Bed is a surreal, short film about destruction and metamorphosis. Inspired by Dr. Donna Haraway's ecofeminist writings and panpsychic philosophy, this live-action film collages together imagery of real Luna moths hatching from their cocoons amidst an ethereal video dreamworld populated with rumbling thunderstorms, textured sounds, and twinkling temple bells. Moon Moth Bed was directed, edited, produced, sound-scored, and performed-by multimedia artist Virginia L. Montgomrey alongside her Luna moth collaborators.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Virginia L. Montgomery is an award-winning experimental filmmaker and multimedia artist working across video, performance, sound design, and sculpture. She received her MFA from Yale University and her BFA from The University of Texas at Austin. ig: @skinnyaliens
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ In Moonrise, insecure college werewolf Raquel is invited to a house party by her crush, Kelly, on the night of the full moon. Raquel struggles all night long at the party to get to talk to Kelly, but finds her dancing with someone else. After a surprise encounter outside the party, Raquel gets one last chance with Kelly as the moon rises outside.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Beo Lerman is an award winning writer and director, and a lifelong native to Austin, Texas. Their work focuses on the inner lives of women and queer people, most often through a comedic lens. They enjoy campy monster movies and love colorful lighting.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ Pamela Anderson Was a Prophet by Sheverb, directed by Emily Basma, is a music video that flips old Western iconography on its head by casting an entirely queer, mostly trans group of performers to tell a story where a Drag Queen is the great equalizer. It's good old fashion camp, but also a giant act of rebellion in these times where performing in drag is more and more threatened by the Texas legislation.
ABOUT THE BAND ✹ Sheverb is a womxn-led, collectively run, psychedelic rock & roll band based in Austin, TX. Armed with their instruments, this crew is out to challenge our understanding of the romanticized Wild West with their desert-fueled, surf-infused sound.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Director Emily Basma is an Austin-based photographer and filmmaker who explores the iconography, folklore, and myths of antiquity as well as the American South. Her work has been featured by Peach Fuzz Magazine, The Alamo Drafthouse, Paramount, and SXSW.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ Relics is a short film that focuses on personal narratives through the lens of migration. Filmed during a workshop at the Contemporary Laguna Gloria in September of 2023, participants explored their own family history through personal relics.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Ana Treviño is an artist and educator based in Austin, TX. Her practice bends the rules of filmmaking and is informed by cultural histories. Through video installation and performance she explores how she can reinvent subjugated narratives.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ SIDE QUESTS is a peep into the wild journey that is Aira’s love life. Misguided as she is, she stays a clueless but hopeful romantic.
ABOUT THE WRITER ✹ Aira Juliet is an award winning host and community organizer - creator of black and queer as fuck and host of queer trivia. She is a comedian, writer, trivia extraordinaire. She has also danced on stage with Janelle Monae + Meg Thee Stallion.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Ben Weaver is a native Texas filmmaker. He started his career working for the local legends such as Terrence Malick and Richard Linklater. He is an Academy Nichole Fellowship quarterfinalist screenwriter with over 20 feature screenplays under his belt.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ In So, That Happened, Sheila and Imran haven’t seen each other since college, but when Imran moves back to Austin, an opportunity arises for the pair to get acquainted once more.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ NEHA AZIZ (she/her) is a Pakistani-born writer, director, film programmer, and podcaster living in Austin, TX. In 2021, she was named an iHeartRadio NextUP fellow for their inaugural podcast program; her show, PARTITION (limited series) debuted in August 2022 and has been featured on Apple Podcasts, NPR, The Austin Chronicle, The 19th News, The Austin American - Statesman, The RepresentASIAN Project, Asian Founded, and more.
ABOUT THE FILM ✹ In the video for Sugar Armadillo, directed by Faiza Kracheni, Nicolas Nadeau (of Single Lash) turns a personal trauma into a grotesque, carnival-like spectacle, reminiscent of Commedia Dell’Arte. With makeup inspired by Steve Strange and Ashes To Ashes-era Bowie, he narrates a surreal tale of love, a mischievous cat, electric shocks, and a dramatic collapse before a harsh audience.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR ✹ Faiza Kracheni (she/her) is an Algerian & Mexican American self-taught media artist from East Austin, Texas. She is the founder of AUSTIN CINEMAKER SPACE, serves as Co-Director of the Motion Media Arts Center, and holds positions on the City of Austin’s Arts Commission and the UNESCO Media Arts Austin steering committee.
• MUSICIANS + DJS •
promqueen (she/they) is a second generation queer Vietnamese American based in Austin, built on authenticity, vulnerability, tự nhiên (being natural), quirkiness, and cultural pride. promqueen writes music for herself, her family, and for other Asian Americans who have ever struggled with “not being Asian enough” while simultaneously “not being American enough.” Fresh off the heels of the June 2024 release of her sophomore album ‘szn two’ and her second annual Prom, promqueen now sets her sights on ACL Music festival, collaborations with local business Terrazzo Tea, and a documentary premiering at the AARC. Backed by Austin based Asian American Label, mHart, promqueen is part of the next generation of Asian American artists on the rise.
Never is a four-piece from Austin, Texas, that weaves their collective expertise into a sonic tapestry of raw authenticity, haunting atmospheres, and angular energy. Through introspective lyrics that explore the human condition and society, Never navigates the contemporary musical landscape with a fresh perspective. Their live performances are a dynamic fusion of their influences, presenting a captivating experience oscillating between contemplative moments and cathartic bursts of expression.
p1nkstar™ (ur fav electr0nic pop superstar!!) creates a world far removed from this dimensions binaries through music and conceptual shows mixing saccharine beats with subversive lyrics, tiaras with ball gags, and body hair with hypnotic ponytails. Merging hyperpop with neo-perreo and club, she has been described as “early Aughts Paris Hilton on Hello Kitty steroids” by The Austin Chronicle, who recently crowned her as their Queer Pop Princess. In her live performances p1nkstar affectionately delivers pure pop performance, mixing witty vocals with electronic beats and video interludes with choreographed numbers and back-up dancers. Since her performance debut in late 2016, p1nkstar has shared bills with Charli XCX, Crystal Waters, The Ladies of LCD Soundsystem, Alok V. Menon, Dorian Electra, JD Samson, OSHUN, and Sateen. p1nkstar released her debut EP “Number 1 Hits!” March 6 2020, featuring five songs produced in collaboration with Mr.Kitty, Ben Aqua & Boy Sim. Bringing her Latinx roots to the increasingly popular hyperpop genre, p1nkstar lays out a bilingual story that touches on the complexities of her queer, trans and immigrant identities in our hyper-mediated digital world. The EP consists of futuristic beats and highly-processed vocals in which p1nkstar renders and invites her listeners into a queer futurity she envisions. Since moving from Mexico in 2014, p1nkstar has rapidly become an emblematic figure in the Texas nightlife scene by opening inclusive spaces that center that work of queer and trans artists of color in a city that is rapidly becoming whiter and straighter. p1nkstar has received two Best of Austin awards for her space-making work in the arts and nightlife & has been presented as the future of nightlife by The Austin Chronicle.
Pam Reyes is an independent singer-songwriter based in Austin, Texas by way of Queens, New York. Pam writes songs to make sense of the world around her. Her forthcoming album, Temporary, will be independently released on all digital platforms on August 9, 2024. In Temporary, Reyes reflects on experiences of transience and diaspora throughout her life– moving to Austin at a height of the COVID pandemic, her immigration from the Philippines to the United States, and what it means to arrive in and (depart from) a place.)
Blooming in Austin but rooted in Detroit, DJ Wyldflower is heavily influenced by Classic and Soulful House music, though her styles and interests are as expansive as her travels have been. She is the founder and host of Sunday Sessions ATX. As a music fanatic, digger and bop deliverer, Wyldflower's dream is to create experiences and curate sets that make people feel light, free and alive. Her sound is groovy, funky, jazzy, eclectic and versatile. She releases mixes under the tag Wyldcard Wednesday that showcase some of her style.
Majesty of Divinity offers sanctuary within the sphere of her live presence and music. Using sounds from around the globe, she weaves together an energy in the dance music scene that is not from this world. Majesty demonstrates the power of music and uses her love of bringing people together and creating safe spaces for those in need. She is also dedicated to finding the best and hottest tracks from the underground, ensuring new sounds and fresh sets anytime you get to see her in action.
Since forming her project in 2021 just outside of Austin, Texas, her drive and passion to share the sounds of the world has allowed many doors to open as well as many beautiful connections to be made. She’s landed opportunities like performing at Deep Tropics Festival, Elements Music & Arts Festival, SXSW, and to be featured on the radio by Femme House on SiriusXM’s channel Diplo’s Revolution.
Houston-native Luya Moreno aka Hierba Malita (they/she) is a queer Latinx multi-disciplinary creative who DJs open-format style with influences ranging from Hip Hop, R&B to Baile Funk, Dembow, Soulful House, Jazzy Spiritual and more. It's about "having fun and sharing the moment with those who resonate with you."
Hierba Malita is the founder of the Latina-led creative collective Flwrpot.Co, where the goal is to build communities and nurture artists' growth, with a heavy emphasis on those who are BIPOC and Queer. Luya is also an art educator for Austin's youth, working with the Mexic-Arte Museum to teach students how to design and screen print their own shirts.YKTV! Growth, Love, Creativity, Authenticity and Community. AMEN!
Supermcn4sty, privately known as Dante (he/they), is an open format DJ and producer based in Austin, Texas. Dante began perfecting his craft in 2017 within a few years time his experience has expanded to spinning at the hottest bars and nightclubs throughout Texas, weddings, private events, holding radio and club residencies such as Love Theory (2023), SZR (2022-2023), and Slow Jams Sunday (2021). To debuting in 2022 at Boiler Room in Houston, Texas, playing at music festivals such as SXSW in 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2024 as an official artist and organizing successful benefit events for local/national non profits such as Creative Action ATX, Communities United Against Police Brutality, and Austin Black Pride. With Supermcn4sty as your sound selector—whether it’s variations of underground club music, house, dance, hip hop, r&b, dancehall, variations of latin or any genre—expect precision, musical exploration, and an unbeatable energy/sound.
DJ FAIRY ARIES (she/they) is a DJ based in Austin, Texas. “Frolic with the last Austin Native. Let's keep Austin lit of our records.”
Mikaela Rodriquez (she/her), known as Dj Veneer, is a queer disabled producer from Austin, born and raised in South Texas. Her production is inspired by early electronic pioneers like Aphex Twin and Oval while also drawing from classic Chicago House. Mikaela creates music as a form of cathartic release and to share the joy of sound and movement. She's critical of the paradigm of artist as commodity accelerated by social media. She has a day job as a technical writer — to keep the lights on.
Violeta Új of Resident Psychic is a multidisciplinary artist from Cancun, Mexico who, inspired by everything from Björk to Ivy Queen, believes music is a conduit for creation and a tool for self-discovery. As an open-format DJ, Violeta aims to create healing spaces through dance.
You can expect to hear sounds of neoperreo, baile funk, electropop, jungle, latinhouse, soul, r&b, and shoegaze. Outside of DJing she writes BABEATX’s biweekly newsletter, works on freelance Art Direction, and is working on her debut graphic novel.
Dreams is a non-binary black DJ, located out of Austin, Texas. They specialize in house, They’ve held residencies with ATX Cuatro Gato, Shared Frequencies (an artist-run radio station), Hong Kong Community Radio, and currently hold a monthly residency with Guad Vintage Market. Dreams is the founder of a party series, BLKRAVECULTURE, which focuses on providing monthly parties, curated for Black people by Black people. Dreams sculpts an electrifying atmosphere that transcends time and space. They paint emotions in sound, leaving an audience entranced by the feelings they conjure on the dance floor.
Bay Area born and raised, DJ Knstalgia, is an open format DJ that blends the sounds of West Coast Hip-Hop, R&B, Electronic/House, and whatever gets the hotties feeling free to let loose and be themselves with those who share the same passion and love.
Lavender Thug (she/her) is a musician, DJ, and drag artist from El Paso, Texas. She recently moved to Austin to pursue entertaining and art full-time, now holding residencies at Coconut Club, Neon Grotto, and Cheer Up Charlie’s. You can find her everywhere @lavenderthug.
• SPECIAL GUESTS + POP-UPS •
HardShapes (she/they) uses a language of colors and shapes to translate the world around and inside of them. Bold, bright, and intentional, they specialize in large-scale commissions and murals.
Early Era Collective is a nonprofit multiform, multi-perspective dance company based in Austin, Texas since 2018. We believe that professional creative work is strongest when collaboratively made by individuals with a variety of training, artistic processes, expertise, lived experience, and world views. Directed by Stephanie Patrick, we are comprised of dancers from contemporary, street style, tap, and other forms, as well as filmmakers, spoken word artists, actors, and singers. No two Early Era creations are the same. Our live productions and internationally featured films often carry a social justice message folded into their artistry, emphasizing personal stories over politics.
Chandrika is a non-binary, multidisciplinary artist of Haitian, Native, and Mexican descent whose creative expression spans performance-theatre, soft sculptures, and text-based paintings on public structures. Their installations and performances across the United States tackle daring and provocative themes, often drawing from personal narratives to illuminate pressing global issues. These semi-autobiographical pieces underscore the intersections of discrimination and radicalism. Seamlessly blending art with activism, Chandrika utilizes a myriad of disciplines as powerful instruments for social protest. Their collaborative engagements include projects with esteemed institutions and platforms such as DiverseWorks, The Orange Show, Rice University, Soho House, Puma, The Contemporary Austin, SaveArtSpace, and Art At A Time Like This.
Anahita (Ani) Bradberry is an Iranian-American artist and writer creating sculptural situations with plasma light. As organic bodies and minimal geometries, her practice is an exercise in life-forming: filling tubular vessels with pulsing plasma—the luminous fourth state of matter—and arranging the ethereal light in conversation with its surroundings. Each object is simultaneously a multidimensional line and an atmospheric field. These glowing paths explore the celestial relationship between illumination, container, and viewer, noting ways in which the built and natural environment is just as much a part of the light’s existence as the source itself. Her work seeks poetic commonality between the hum of a bar neon and the plasma warmth of the sun itself, often exploring a site-responsive state of alienation that is defined by oscillating identities and cultural memory. Plasma lamps are essentially alive: “mortal” in their fragility, prone to unexpected internal behaviors, and reliant on external power sources. She finds the lack of predictability in materials such as neon gas and other organic matter as a valuable characteristic, allowing the artwork autonomy and evolution over time. Her path into art-making was paved in graduate study of Japanese Modern and Contemporary Art History, with special attention to Mono-ha, Gutai, Jikken Kobo, and the avant-garde photography of Otsuji Kiyoji. Post-thesis, she continues to reflect on these collectives’ exhibition practices that sparked collective conversation between material autonomy, organic matter, play, and poetic humanism. Anahita has been featured in exhibitions at Women & Their Work Gallery (TX), Co-Lab Projects (TX), MASS Gallery (TX), ArtSpring Lichtkunstfest (Berlin), Dominique Gallery (LA), Two Six Eight Bowery (NYC), the Washington Project for the Arts (DC), Transformer (DC), VisArts (VA), the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (DC), George Washington University's Gallery 102 (DC) and CICA — the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (South Korea). Anahita earned an MA in Art History in 2015 on Japanese Modern and Contemporary Art from American University (Washington, DC), conducting primary research in Tokyo with the help of a Mellon Grant and lecturing on her research at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016. She later assisted in the archival projects at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art as a Research Assistant. During her time in DC, she co-founded DIRT: an accessible online platform for unconventional art criticism and intimate artist interviews. From there, she continued archival practices in NYC as a knowledge management consultant for architecture and design firms. In 2024, the City of Austin and the Trail Conservancy commissioned the monumental Sun Poem through the TEMPO Public Art Program: a year-long installation at the historic Seaholm Water Intake Facility landmark in downtown Austin. Ani is a contributing member of MASS Gallery, a volunteer-run collaborative exhibition space in Austin, TX.
Simone Raquel Alexander (she/her) is a freelance artist, arts administrator, and arts advocate working in the nonprofit field and theatre community. Simone serves as Senior Manager of Engagement and Accessibility at The Contemporary Austin museum. She serves as Producing Artistic Director and Founder of New Manifest Theatre Company, where she has brought together an ensemble of interdisciplinary artists. Simone volunteers through service on the Mama Sana Vibrant Women Board Circle, University of Texas UTeach Fine Arts Advisory Council, Austin Community Colleges AAS Drama in Tech Theatre Advisory Committee, and the ATX Theatre Advisory Board.
Blooming in Austin but rooted in Detroit, DJ Wyldflower is heavily influenced by Classic and Soulful House music, though her styles and interests are as expansive as her travels have been. She is the founder and host of Sunday Sessions ATX. As a music fanatic, digger and bop deliverer, Wyldflower's dream is to create experiences and curate sets that make people feel light, free and alive. Her sound is groovy, funky, jazzy, eclectic and versatile. She releases mixes under the tag Wyldcard Wednesday that showcase some of her style.
Al Acosta (they/them) is an ancestral worker, plant nerd and healing arts practitioner at Potion, a contemporary wellness collective and studio local to Austin, Texas. As a tarot guide and psychic artist, they offer sessions and readings as Santos Suerte.
Jen D. Rodriguez (she/her) is the owner and executive chef of 3 small plates catering, which specializes in chef-curated culinary excursions. The Texas native creates various flavors and cuisines for guests to enjoy Europe's visual splendor, borrowing inspiration from her travels to Europe, her family's experiences, and her passion for cooking. She discovered her passion for cooking as a child while spending time with her grandmother, and she has since served a range of Austin groups, including civic, commercial, and non-profit organizations, private events, art and music markets, and chef collaborations. She is currently a curator for the Future Front Texas group, as well as co-chair of the Austin Les Dames Escoffier Programming Committee.