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Sixteen year-old fashion prodigy Malik struggles to find his direction and overcome an abusive community in order to fully embrace his talent and identity despite his homophobic community automatically labeling him as gay. Raw Materials is a coming-of-age story that faces sexuality, the church, family, and the constant pursuit of getting to know oneself.
By Maria Clara Ribeiro
See the 33-minue short drama Raw Materials on February 21 @5PM at Cinema Village (22 East 12th Street) as part of New York City’s 11th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival. Tickets now on sale!
When speaking to Sosiessia Nixon-Kelly, the writer and director for Raw Materials, she made her intentions very clear: “This is for my country – even though it’s a story with global impact and people all across the world can relate to it. It’s for my country, for us to love people regardless of who they are, and to allow them to be themselves. I’m tired of hearing about homosexuals being beaten on the street, not having certain privileges, and not being able to come outside certain times of the day. I’m hoping that as a Christian society, we can learn how to love these people and not avoid, shun them, and close our church doors on them. Because if we are really Christians, we need to love everyone.”
When Sosiessia was a Sunday School teacher at her church in Jamaica, she had a student who was a little boy with qualities that set him apart from the rest of the community. He acted and spoke differently than what was expected from a young boy. He didn’t take the form that was expected by those around him. Sosiessia witnessed this little boy, a child simply being himself, get judged. His sexuality was questioned negatively by adults who were members of a Christian community whose entire faith and belief system is anchored to the idea of love and acceptance. She decided that she needed to tell the story that she was witnessing and construct a mirror for her community to show their reluctance to embrace people who do not conform to the characteristics that have been selected as ‘acceptable’.
“Let me just be frank and really blunt. I live in Jamaica, we are still very much homophobic here in Jamaica. It took a lot of courage to write a story like Raw Materials. Even though Raw Materials didn’t say “hey, I’m gay or hey I’m not gay”, there is still a hint of homosexuality as a way of saying: just let people be, let them be who they are, and let them figure out who it is that they want to be. Let’s not tell them they’re this or they’re that, because they do not conform to our ideologies of who a person in society should be and how a man in society should act.”
There are many conversations that Sosiessia brings into dialogue within the narrative of this film. Raw Materials not only confronts the dangers of judging a human’s sexuality before they have the opportunity to discover who they are for themselves, but it also confronts how a community falls short of its duty of loving those that belong to them and the fear of surrendering to ourselves and fully settling into the particularities that make us individuals.
In many coming-of-age stories, young people are portrayed through a journey of self-discovery with a neatly tied conclusion that states, “This is who I am, and this is who I will be!”. It delivers a message that by the time you enter adulthood, you are stuck with the version of yourself that you chose at 18. Raw Materials offers a counter-message. It does not conclude with a final version of Malik’s character; it does not end on a note where he claims a complete understanding of who he is, but instead shows an embrace of the longevity of the process of getting to know oneself.
Maria Clara Ribeiro
Maria Clara Ribeiro is a Brazilian-American senior at New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study taking an interdisciplinary approach to studying applied communications and media, concentrating on how narrative is used as a tool to shape and reflect ideology. Her studies are anchored in deep concern about how stories impact the public’s social and emotional development.
About Winter Film Awards
New York City’s 11th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival runs February 16-25 2023. Check out a jam-packed lineup of 73 fantastic films in all genres from 21 countries, including shorts, features, Animation, Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Horror, Documentary and Music Video. Hollywood might ignore women and people of color, but Winter Film Awards celebrates everyone!
Winter Film Awards is an all-volunteer, minority and women-owned registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2011 in New York City by a group of filmmakers and enthusiasts. Our mission is to promote diversity, bridge the opportunity divide and provide a platform for under-represented artists and a variety of genres, viewpoints and approaches. We believe that only by seeing others’ stories can we understand each other and only via an open door can the underrepresented artist enter the room.
Winter Film Awards programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Promotional support provided by the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment.
For more information about the Festival, please visit winterfilmawards.com
