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Dreams in Nightmares

Panorama 2025
© Po Wei Su / 118W Films
After losing her job, Z embarks on a trip across the American Midwest. Together with her two closest friends, she is searching for another friend of theirs who has seemingly disappeared off the grid. In each city, the three queer Black femmes face new threats that test their priorities, causing personal and ideological fractures to emerge. With their second film, Shatara Michelle Ford puts their own singular stamp on the American road movie. Dreams in Nightmares is an expansive and tender ode to the chosen family and to the radical act of claiming space to dream – and to exist – in an increasingly fraught country.
by Shatara Michelle Ford (Director, Screenplay)
with Denée Benton, Mars Storm Rucker, Dezi Bing, Sasha Compere, Charlie Barnett, Jasmin Savoy Brown USA / Taiwan / United Kingdom 2024 English 128' Colour International premiere

With

  • Denée Benton (Z)
  • Mars Storm Rucker (Kel)
  • Dezi Bing (Lauren)
  • Sasha Compere (Tasha)
  • Charlie Barnett (Reece)
  • Jasmin Savoy Brown (Sabrina)

Crew

Director Shatara Michelle Ford
Screenplay Shatara Michelle Ford
Cinematography Ludovica Isidori
Editing Cyndi Trissel
Music Lia Ouyang Rusli
Sound Design Thomas Ouziel
Production Design Eloise Ayala
Producers Pin-Chun Liu, Naima Abed, Shatara Michelle Ford

Produced by

120E Films

Spark Features

Paradise City

World Sales

Memento International

Photos

Shatara Michelle Ford

© Lendl Tellington

The African-American filmmaker was born in Arkansas, Missouri and lives in Pennsylvania, USA. Ford’s films explore memory, perception, alienation, isolation, America and Americanness, all the while interrogating systems of oppression via characters who must live or survive within them. Ford’s debut film Test Pattern was released to critical acclaim, was nominated for a Gotham Award in three categories and won awards from the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle, the Austin Film Critics Association, the Women Film Critics Circle, the New Orleans Film Festival and the BlackStar Film Festival. Ford is also the recipient of the New Generation Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Filmography

2016 Afro-Woman; short film 2019 Test Pattern 2025 Dreams in Nightmares

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2025