Uriah Plays the Alien

A portrait of my brother Uriah becomes a sci-fi fantasy about queerness, alienation, and disability. Using reenactment to address the problematic, it proposes a way of healing and moving forward out of a present moment of rejection, into radical acceptance. “About ten minutes into shooting, my siblings decided they didn’t want to make a movie anymore. I had to placate them with Cheetos and donuts. Even with snacks, total insurgency ensued after about two hours. I thought the shoot was a failure until I showed the footage to someone a month later. Then I realized that a movie can be as simple as a document of failing.” -Stephen Wardell