I spent a decade facilitating youth filmmaking programs in New York City public high schools and community spaces and it was in these spaces—alive with the raw energy of young storytellers—that my film Baby was born. Baby is a queer coming-of-age love story featuring an incredible cast of “non-actors”, that examines toxic masculinity through my lens as a queer femme. But more than that, it is an ode to the young people who shaped me as much as I taught them. It is a love letter to queer youth—past, present, and future—who have always carved out spaces of joy, connection, and belonging in a world that often seeks to erase them, and who always will.

It is incredibly lonely to not feel free to be who you truly are, and this film is a quiet exploration of a young person who is on a journey of figuring out how to do just that.