untitled queer birth project
feature documentary, in production
director, Editor
In this vibrant and poetic feature documentary, queer and trans conceiving, pregnant and parenting participants across the US - including the director - collectively reflect on building families with radical intentionality and hope. This happens whilst navigating and disrupting the homophobic, transphobic, fatphobic, racist, and ableist systems that shape birth and caregiving. The participants also include midwives, doulas, and birth workers. Through the many joys and griefs of a queer family building journey, a polyvocal narrative is shaped around the expansive ways in which we develop networks of support for one another and create the resources and models that we need in order to grow our families. Queer family building is a commitment to life itself, a revolutionary hope, and a belief in a better world. This film is a map, a spell, an invitation into that world.
Fiscally sponsored by the Utah Film Center
Director Statement: I never envisioned being a parent until I started meeting queer/trans families, solo/village, and radical parents queering conception, birth, and family building. As I found models of possibility, space opened to envision my own family forming. Once this door opened, I could explore my why - to go through the transformative experience of pregnancy and birth in my body, as an opportunity for relational healing, and as a commitment to radical hope for the future. Including my personal journey in the film and using the workshop to create footage in community are two unique aspects of my production approach that I will use to weave a story of queer family that hasn’t been told. By including my own conception process, I intend to use my own body/experience as material that I can explore more intimately than other subjects and to let my own family and the film transform and take shape simultaneously. I want to make this film in order to personally transform, to weave artistic creation with human creation, and to enact a filmmaking process that centers care and nurturance in order to create a model of possibility for other queer folks.
TEAM
Consulting PRODUCER
Kamee is a queer SWANA mama, interdisciplinary artist, storyteller, producer, community organizer, caregiver, waitress, and witch whose work summons ancestral reclamation, diasporic futurism, and justice. They’re a Pushcart nominated writer, a Lambda-awarded playwright, and an alumni resident at VONA, Banff Center for Arts, and DocX (Duke University). Documentaries they’ve worked on have been supported by Sundance, HotDocs, and Catapult. Kamee received the 2025 Creative Capital Award, published a children's book, and organized a multi-day arts program for a gathering of 4000 global-south feminist activists in Bangkok as part of their role as the arts programmer for AWID.
Producer
Sam Heim has worked as an in-house producer for the outdoor industry for five years and is now committed to telling raw, intimate, and vulnerable stories of the complex human condition. Sam has produced two non-fiction shorts: “Meet Me Where I Am” and “Winding Path” and directed and produced the festival-accepted dance film, “September”. Finding joy and calm in the chaotic moments, Sam has a quiet fire to share the truth and beauty of this fragile existence. She is currently associate producer for the feature-length documentary, We Arrive With Fire, about cultural burning on ancestral lands.
Cinematographer
Justis Aderibigbe is a Black filmmaker from the commonwealth of Dominica. For five years he has worked as a Director of Photography and Chief Lighting Technician, across many narrative, documentary, and commercial projects with experience across shows like “Wardriver”, “The High School Musical” TV show, and “The Last of Us”. His passion in filmmaking is in the cross section of humanity and the environment, which can be seen in his projects, “From The Marrow”, “Mushroom God”, and “Void Formula”. Justis aims to tell stories that help people understand their own world better, and hopefully themselves.
Consulting Birth Worker
Beth Hardy has been a doula for 15 years and has grown Heart Tones Birth Services into one of the best known and most trusted doula businesses in Salt Lake City. Beth and her team of 15 birth + postpartum doulas specialize in serving the LGBTQ+ community, and also offer scholarships and sliding scale options to clients who want a doula but can't afford one. At Heart Tones Birth Services, we hold space for every birth + every body, providing unbiased, inclusive care to the full spectrum of families.
Cinematographer
Kelsie Moore is an Emmy-award winning Australian-American filmmaker based in Utah. In her process as a documentarian, Kelsie facilitates conditions of safety and openness to allow for trusted, authentic expression with those in front and behind the lens. She values leading with soft, collaborative intentions while emphasizing communal care, non-violent communication and spiritual approaches that are rooted in an awareness of body and land. She has been awarded numerous Public Media Journalists Association awards for her films documenting human interest stories in the American West and in 2022 she received a regional Emmy for her directorial debut with PBS, The Gerda That Remains. Working in both commercial and documentary spaces, Kelsie believes her strongest work comes from prioritizing vulnerability, connection and the space to dream.