Rhys Ernst
History
Rhys Ernst is a filmmaker and artist. Ernst was nominated for a 2015 Emmy Award for directing and producing the webseries This Is Me. He created the award-winning trans history web series We’ve Been Around, and is a Producer, Director on Amazon’s Transparent; he also created the Transparent title sequence. Ernst has shown work in the Whitney Biennial, Sundance, Oberhausen, and The Hammer Museum; he has won awards at Outfest, Chicago International Film Festival and the LA Transgender Film Festival; he has won two GLAAD Awards, was a Point Scholar, a Project Involve Fellow, and was awarded the Point Foundation Horizon Award and the ACLU Liberty Award for his work on LGBTQ representation in the media. He lives in Los Angeles and is the director of the forthcoming feature ADAM.
Executive Producer
A transgender actor struggles with what it means to be seen after the beloved captain of his lesbian bowling league dies and a mysterious stranger shows up at the funeral.
Director
Adam, an awkward teen, spends a summer with his older sister, who is part of New York City's lesbian and trans activist scene. He meets the girl of his dreams but can't figure out how to tell her he's not the trans man she thinks he is.
Director
The story of four transgender individuals across America who are fighting for rights and representation in a challenging and changing world.
Director
The story of Lou Sullivan, a transgender man and AIDS activist. Cutting VHS footage of Sullivan's trailblazing appearances on talk shows with contemporary screenshots of Grindr users' bewildered responses to the filmmaker's own trans status, Dear Lou Sullivan is a provocative text exploring trans visibility, then and now.
Writer
There's something missing in Tristan and Zooey's relationship. Zooey has spent weeks planning a road trip to a mysterious roadside attraction known as 'The Thing' in the hopes that she and Tristan will reconnect. Both Tristan, an FTM transman, and his fluffy cat Steven struggle to find places to comfortably pee, while Zooey learns the open road isn't everything she hoped it would be. Will they find what they're looking for at 'The Thing'?
Director
There's something missing in Tristan and Zooey's relationship. Zooey has spent weeks planning a road trip to a mysterious roadside attraction known as 'The Thing' in the hopes that she and Tristan will reconnect. Both Tristan, an FTM transman, and his fluffy cat Steven struggle to find places to comfortably pee, while Zooey learns the open road isn't everything she hoped it would be. Will they find what they're looking for at 'The Thing'?
While visiting her Auntie Holly, Darling enters a parallel, dream-like world, where a series of encounters with transfeminine figures (played by Holly Woodlawn, Vaginal Davis, and Flawless Sabrina) explore the complexity of identity politics, gender construction and the edification of affects amid a kaleidoscopic depiction of time and place.
Director
While visiting her Auntie Holly, Darling enters a parallel, dream-like world, where a series of encounters with transfeminine figures (played by Holly Woodlawn, Vaginal Davis, and Flawless Sabrina) explore the complexity of identity politics, gender construction and the edification of affects amid a kaleidoscopic depiction of time and place.
House Party Guest / Interview
Two middle-aged lesbian couples accidentally kill a younger girl and decide to cover it up. But their crime comes back to haunt them when an unexpected stranger appears in their lives, bringing tension and discord.
A collage of MetroCards raises the curtain on the layered, cut-out animation of N Train, which captures the frenetic beat of city life with its snapshot of a young, queer New Yorker trying to connect.
Writer
A collage of MetroCards raises the curtain on the layered, cut-out animation of N Train, which captures the frenetic beat of city life with its snapshot of a young, queer New Yorker trying to connect.
Director
A collage of MetroCards raises the curtain on the layered, cut-out animation of N Train, which captures the frenetic beat of city life with its snapshot of a young, queer New Yorker trying to connect.
Director
In the Secret Men's Club, a simple office exchange becomes a highly dramatized metaphor for exclusionary male culture, offering a sardonic critique for this ubiquitous but often invisible brotherhood.
Director
Two youths bicker their way up the East Coast and through a discomforting and poignant transition into adulthood. Using still images, animation, Super-8 and an experimental score composed and performed by the filmmaker, The Drive North subverts the typical coming-of-age tale with social commentary, humor and an understated identity-politics slant. This savvy short demonstrates the skills of the next generation of media makers, seamlessly incorporating an astute sense of self-reflection, rebellion and family relationships.
Assistant Camera
With its non-linear structure, Zackary Drucker’s dreamlike Unison imagines phases of an always evolving trans identity existing simultaneously over an idyllic afternoon.
With its non-linear structure, Zackary Drucker’s dreamlike Unison imagines phases of an always evolving trans identity existing simultaneously over an idyllic afternoon.
