Dreams in Nightmares

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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.

details

  • Runtime

    128 min
  • Country

    United States, Taiwan, Great Britain
  • Year of Presentation

    2025
  • Year of Production

    2024
  • Director

    Shatara Michelle Ford
  • Cast

    Denée Benton, Mars Storm Rucker, Dezi Bing, Sasha Compere, Charlie Barnett, Jasmin Savoy Brown
  • Production Company

    120E Films, Spark Features, Paradise City
  • Berlinale Section

    Panorama
  • Berlinale Category

    Feature Film

Biography Shatara Michelle Ford

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 Shatara Michelle Ford

2016 Afro-Woman; Kurzfilm | 2019 Test Pattern | 2025 Dreams in Nightmares