Dreams Of My Father
She’s sitting on a secret. || Her monster’s in the mirror.
ABOUT
En route to an audition, aspiring actress Leila stops at a motel and hooks up with one of the locals. After swallowing a weed edible, she is flooded with paranoia and insecurity about her physical appearance as a transwoman. To make matters worse, everywhere she turns she sees the apparition of her biggest tormentor. Will she summon the courage to vanquish the demons of her past once and for all?
YEAR 2021
RUN TIME 14:15 Min
EMAIL stuntmanjimstudios@gmail.com Website: https://linktr.ee/JABurkhalter
Instagram: @stuntmanjim.dir
CAST & CREW CREDITS
DIRECTED, WRITTEN, AND EDITED BY James A. Burkhalter
CO-PRODUCED BY James A. Burkhalter & Imani Leigh
1st DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Justin Foreman
2nd DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Tyler Grimes
SOUND Mohamed Sultan
PRINCIPAL CAST
Gillian Omotoso | Ryan Sheehan | Lamar Meachem | “Downtown” Kevin Brown | Shireen Robinson | Ava Dee
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
To draw on the words of New Queer Cinema director Gregg Araki, my film, Dreams of My Father, is “not 100% autobiographical but it is 100% personal.”
It employs horror and action movie tropes to channel the resentment and anger I harbored toward my father for decades. After dodging mirrors and cameras for an entire year, I reached the breaking point where I surgically erased our striking family resemblance.
In telling this deeply personal story, I want to challenge society’s concept of binary oppositions and explore the grey areas between good and evil, love and hate, masculinity and femininity, and reality and dreams. In a subversion of conventional filmmaking’s heteronormative, patriarchal gaze, the male lead character is treated as the sexual object of desire. The film’s nontraditional narrative deliberately withholds information, challenging audiences to fill in the blanks and interpret the material in complex ways.
DIRECTOR BIO
James A. Burkhalter is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and educator living and working in Baltimore. His films have been honored at the Made In Baltimore Short Film Festival, the Black Femme Supremacy Film Festival, and the LGBTQ Unbordered International Film Festival, among others. His filmmaking idols include John Waters, Bill Gunn, Jordan Peele, Gregg Araki, and Cheryl Dunye. James holds a dual BA in Documentary Film Studies and English from Gettysburg College and will earn his MFA in Filmmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2021.
FILM AND PRODUCTION STILLS
INTERVIEWS
AWARDS
AWARD OF MERIT – 2021 LGBTQ Unbordered International Film Festival
OFFICIAL SELECTION – 2021 Baltimore International Black Film Festival
FULL FILM
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
In the summer of 2021, James produced the critically acclaimed comedic short film, F^¢K ‘EM R!GHT B@¢K (2022 Sundance Official Selection), and his queer horror screenplay, “Last Call,” won 2nd Place at the Baltimore Film Office’s 16th Annual Screenwriters’ Competition (hosted by the MDFF). In Spring 2023, he was awarded a $30K development grant through the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund to produce his 2nd feature length documentary, tentatively titled Guns 4 Gays; Or, My First Time.
As of 2023, James is working as the Programming Coordinator of the Maryland Film Festival, a part-time Professor in MICA’s MFA Filmmaking department, and an Editor for the Green Burial Association of Maryland. He is also working as an Assistant Editor on the upcoming true crime documentary, The Last Trace (directed by Catherine Rentz).
(Update provided in February 2024)