In anticipation of the second edition of INBETWEENS – Queer Animation Screening, this time happening at Cardiff Chapter in collaboration with Cardiff Animation Festival, we had the chance to dive deeper into one of the films that will be screening on Saturday the 23rd. Based on the poem by Dean Atta, Two Black Boys in Paradise (2025) is a stop-motion short film narrated by Jordan Stephens. It follows the two boys – Edan (19) and Dula (18) – on a poetic journey of queer love and self-discovery, where paradise is not just a place but a state of being; fragile and threatened by internalised fear, shame, and societal expectations. Skwigly had the chance to catch up with Dean Atta, Baz Sells and Ben Jackson ahead of the INBETWEENS screening. Before we dive deeper into your film Two Black Boys in Paradise (2025), could you introduce yourselves and talk a little bit about your creative work and roles in the making of the film.

Dean Atta: I am a poet and author. I wrote the poem that TBBIP is adapted from. I have been writing and performing poetry for over twenty years and have also been writing young adult novels more recently – the most well known being The Black Flamingo. I write about black and queer issues in a lot of my work and I am black and gay myself. It has been really lovely to see how my words are travelling now, through the film, all over the world, which is a dream come true.

Ben Jackson: I am the producer on TBBIP and co-founder of One6th, which is the production company Baz and I set up in 2018. I have produced a couple of other short films with Baz before this and wanted to make a film that explores LGBT+ themes as I had been struggling a lot with my sexuality. I didn’t come out until I was 30 – once I moved to Berlin, actually. My boyfriend mentioned a poetry event in Berlin that Dean was at. TBBIP was actually one of the poems that Dean read there and it did really stick with me.

Baz Sells: I am the director of TBBIP. Ben, Dean and myself were all involved in the writing of the film. I am also co-DOP on the film. Me and Ben first started making stop motion together at the Northern Film School – Leeds Beckett now. Since then, our films tend to lean into social, political subjects. Ben came out ten years into our friendship but before then we hadn’t really had that conversation and I always just assumed Ben was straight. So making this film was a very personal process for our friendship as well, because we got to know more about each other. We got stuck into developing TBBIP in 2020 but it wasn’t without a little trepidation I have to admit, because I am straight and I am white myself, so there were some tough questions asked and we had a few discussions between us. I was committed to listening as much as I possibly could. It wasn’t always smooth sailing but we all dealt with the subject matter and the conversations with openness, understanding and grace.

Two Black Boys in Paradise (One6th)

The poem Two Black Boys in Paradise is part of a poetry collection from 2022, called There is (still) love here. I couldn’t help but notice that the book cover looks very similar to one particular shot in your film where the two main characters Dula and Edan are floating together underwater. What were your original inspirations and visions for the poem and how did they eventually translate into the film?

DA: I wrote the poem several years before 2022. We were already beginning to make the film when the book was published. We were able to use some of the concept art that Sanna Räsänen had made. The poem was first written for the Courtauld Gallery. They were having an event in which they wanted poets to respond to different artworks. I chose the portrait of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and wanted to reclaim Eden for black, queer people. As someone who grew up Christian, I always felt it was a story that I didn’t have complete access to. I heard the phrase a few times in my youth: “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” That stuck with me. There is a line in my book The Black Flamingo where I mention Two Black Boys in Paradise: The character of Michael imagines having a black boyfriend and what that would be like. It’s about self-acceptance and the loving of other black queer people. You’ve got to love yourself first before you can really love anyone else – that is what the poem is about.

It’s been a few years since you started working on TBBIP and I was wondering if we could travel back in time and get a little insight of how it all began?

BJ: It was summer of 2020, when I approached Dean and we started putting moodboards together. It was a really long process and a year of development before we applied for BFI funding. By the time we applied for it we had done absolutely everything we could to make this as strong as possible. At the end of 2021, we found out that we got the funding and then it was another six months of admin and paperwork before we got into pre-production.

BS: Looking back it’s been a very long road. One of the things that still sticks with me was the writing process after Ben sent Dean’s poem over. It was such an enjoyable and singular creative experience for me because the poem is so strong and lends itself well to a visual interpretation. It was really beautiful. What struck me reading the poem initially was that it really challenged me. Dean’s voice is so strong, bold and unapologetic and I feel like the poem itself is really confident in its own identity.

DA: There is no police in paradise. That line, I think, a lot of people can get behind, because we’re seeing these boys being criminalised for something they haven’t done and we’re saying this wouldn’t happen in paradise. But then the poem also says: There are no white people in this paradise. This paradise is the paradise between the two black boys. When I perform the poem, I sometimes look into the audience at the white people for their responses. I am actually mixed race, I’ve got a white mum, so what does that mean: there are no white people in this paradise? For me it was important for the two boys in the poem, that they have this moment where it is just the two of them. They can be fully themselves with one another without interruption. No one is asking who they are, they are just together.

BS: In 2020 we were experiencing growing momentum and coverage of the Black Lives Matter Movement. It was a time in which there was a lot of debate around these subjects and I loved that Dean is willing to go there.

DA: The Black Lives Matter movement is still really strong and our film is one way of expressing that in an artistic way. Some people will organise in the community, some people will march on the streets, some people will write to their politicians and some people make art. There are so many ways to express that black lives matter.

BJ: And I love that shot of the film, how proud Dula walks away and leaves the policeman behind. With this film it was important that it was a celebration, that there was joy coming through and a feeling of belonging.

Camera & Lighting Assistant Ann Li Ho & Co-DOP Kevin Paul Lawrence working on TBBIP paradise set (One6th)

Within the poem and film, you have created two opposing worlds. The paradise realm, where the two boys are free. Where you can feel the love and tenderness. You also have the market world where the boys are facing marginalisation, and societal pressures. These spaces are differentiated by the visuals, sound and narration. An element that occurs both in the poem and the film is the apple. What were your intentions behind choosing the apple as a bridge from one world to the other?

DA: In the poem, the apple was inspired by the garden of Eden and the temptation of Adam and Eve. In the film, the boys reach for the apple and are dragged out of paradise. They are accused of stealing this apple that had just appeared out of nowhere. It is about the distraction that homophobia and racism is for us to be able to just live our lives. The boys are treated with suspicion and then defiantly decide to come back together, kiss and return to paradise, where none of this will bother them. The apple can mean many things and we chose intentionally for paradise to be as real as the market stalls. Both these spaces in our film are real and we treat them as such.

BTS of the TBBIP Market Set (One6th)

The visual distinction between these two worlds is really well crafted. Things that come to mind are a pub in the background called The Red Herring, cracks and puddles in the road, red warning signs that are part of the background. Could you give us an insight into the concept behind the look of the film?

BS: Although the worlds are different tonally, there are a lot of recurring shapes. The houses in the market have a similar silhouette to the mountains, the lampposts are a similar shade of green to the trees in paradise, the shape of the puddle is the same as the shape of the lake. I don’t want to point all of them out because I want to leave them for people to discover themselves but there are lots of little Easter eggs and visual ties between paradise and the market. Both of these worlds can be as real as we want them to be. From a design point of view, we were very much focusing on creating characters and shapes that were imperfect because we wanted to embrace the feeling and belief that beauty can come from imperfect forms and that there is beauty in everything.

I am really interested in the process of making the puppets for your film, could you talk a little bit about the making?

BJ: It started with concept art, which Sanna did, and then based on that, she made sculpts out of plasticine. From that moulds were made. We had different types of armatures. Most of the background characters were wire armatures, but the boys, the police, and the judge were ball and socket armatures. 
We had two sets of naked boy puppets and a set of clothed boy puppets. It is rare to get naked puppets – and for good reason. They were not easy to work with, especially the underwater shot with the position the boys were in. They were splitting all the time mid shot and had to be fixed by the animators. 
We were often only getting ten to twelve frames a day on that shot. The eyelids and mouths were 3D printed and I spent days and days sanding eyelids to get them smooth. We achieved Albert’s certificate for sustainable production on this film, so we were trying to be as sustainable as possible. One of the most sustainable things to make hair out of is real human hair, so the hair was made out of a mixture of real human hair and felt. Dula’s locks had to be animated so we drilled holes in the top of his head, loads of little holes, and then glue each lock into the holes so that it could be animated independently.

BTS shot of Dula and Edan underwater with key animator, Kecy Salangad (One6th)

There’s one puppet that only occurs in the paradise realm. 
A big majestic bird that also looks happy and goofy with big round eyes. What was the idea behind this bird character?

BS: 
On the climax shot we wanted to provide this beautiful backdrop that was an absolute celebration of these boys and what they represent. But then it became also a representation of an audience member that might not be familiar with this kind of film. He always gets a laugh. Every time we go to a screening, there is always a point at which everyone chuckles and laughs. We deal with such heavy subject matters in the market, and they’re all vital, but before going into the sex scene, you want to feel like you’re changing the tone slightly and bringing in a more lighthearted feel. For me, the peacock is a representation of how I hope people will absorb the film: with curiosity and an open mind.

DA: I was really excited to hold that puppet when I went to visit the studio. 
I like its goofiness and I like the comic moment that it kind of allows to happen and the relief that it gives to the audience members after some of the heavier stuff. It’s an essential character in the film.

Every time I go on social media these days, a new laurel seems to have been added to the film. What has the reception of the film been like so far and where is the journey taking it?

BJ: The reception has been absolutely overwhelming. We’ve been very lucky to be selected for the biggest and oldest LGBT+ festivals, which is really amazing and obviously helps us reach a queer audience, which was always our intention. The feedback we’ve had at festivals has been amazing and touching – it makes the whole process worthwhile. 
We have been selected for quite a lot of Oscar-qualifying and BAFTA-qualifying festivals. I am currently in the process of doing our Oscar submission and we’re waiting for BAFTA to open. We do have ambitious hopes, but we’ll see how awards season goes. Actually, on the note of awards: over the weekend, we did win Best Stop Motion Short at the Portlands Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology.

DA: An audience member, who was black, queer and nonbinary, came up to me and said: “I came along to this, thinking I’d only be partially seen because it was about two black boys in paradise, but then at the end, when you open up paradise to trans and non-binary people and everyone, I felt completely seen.” That was a really lovely feedback. The majority of the film is about the boys, but at the end, we do open paradise up for anyone that needs it. Everyone involved in the film has been so proud to have been involved in something that’s doing so well. By the time we got to the crew screening, we all saw that we’d made something special.

BS: I also know that the film festival circuit can be quite difficult. Everyone will see the laurels, we upload, but obviously we don’t share the rejections we get – and there are rejections. It’s a very difficult time for the animation industry, and for any filmmakers that have their film out there. Every film is a small miracle to finish because it takes so many moving parts, and to put it out there is another act of bravery. From that point of view, I’m almost wary to portray an image where it’s constantly win after win for us, even though I’m really enthusastic and happy that we’re getting these kind of selections and such great opportunities. The animation and film community has just been outstanding, just so brilliant and supportive, and that has been one of the lovely things about this journey as well.

Dean Atta in front of the TBBIP paradise set (Leona Gasper)

If you would like to catch the film and dive into the world of Dula and Edan yourself, you have the chance to do so on Saturday the 23rd of August at Chaper Arts Centre inCardiff where the next edition of INBETWEENS – Queer Animation Screening will be held in collaboration with Cardiff Animation Festival. 

The post Two Black Boys in Paradise | Interview with Dean Atta, Baz Sells, and Ben Jackson appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Curated by local animator Luzie Ilgner, the screening showcases a playful, heartfelt, and thought-provoking mix of animations that either explore LGBTQIA+ themes or are created by queer artists.

What hides behind those masks, the leather and the rubber, and who can help me fix my pipe?

-(Pipes 2022, Presskit)

Ahead of INBETWEENS we had the chance to dive deeper into the journey of Pipes (2022) – one of the films from the queer screening’s programme. Pipes was directed by the filmmaker trio Jessica Meier, Kilian Feusi and Sujanth Ravichandran. We caught up with Jessica Meier and had a chat about her role in the film team and the making of Pipes. 

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your animation journey!

I am one of the three directors of Pipes, our graduation film at the Bachelor’s programme for Animation Film at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland. I came to animation by accident. I always loved drawing and wanted to be an illustrator for a long time. When it was time to get into art school I went to visit the universities and ended up going to the animation department, pretty much by accident. I then thought that this was so much cooler than illustration. So I applied for it, got in and moved to Lucerne where we made the movie together. We are still friends, of course, but we have gone our separate ways and are all working independently now. Kilian is working mostly in sound now and doing some animation while also trying to pitch for his film. Sujanth is currently taking a break from animation and is doing more technical work. I did a little bit of freelance work last year and now I am trying to work on my own new film. It’s in very early pre-production stages and mostly just an idea.

In your own words, what is Pipes about?

Pipes is about a plumber that needs to go fix a pipe in a gay fetish club and he goes on an adventure in there.

And he comes out transformed..

It’s like a little hero’s journey!

Pipes (Dir. Kilian Feusi, Jessica Meier, Sujanth Ravichandran)

Where did the idea for the film come from and how did you form the team?

How it works in our school is that, over the summer, you prepare a pitch for a film that you would like to do as your graduation project. I pitched something and Kilian pitched the original idea for Pipes, which was quite different, but the setting of the gay club and the teddy bear protagonist was the same. At the time it was a much more serious – and less sexual – idea; it was more about male loneliness and questioning your sexuality. Sujanth didn’t pitch. He wanted to work mostly on action shots animation. The teachers looked at all the pitches. Because of time and budget restraints of the school not every project can get made, so you have to team up. The teachers basically sat us down and said “Hey Jess and Kilian, your ideas sound similar, you seem to have similar things to say, how about you guys get together and work on either of your projects?” Then we formed the trio and decided to work on the idea of Pipes.

Your film is inspired by a personal experience. Could you elaborate on this?

The idea of Pipes is inspired by something that happened to Kilian. The club [in the film] is also based on a real club that existed in Zürich. It was called Rage and closed down during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, there was a night where Kilian was out with his friends. They went to several clubs and also ended up going to that gay fetish club. Kilian is gay but wasn’t into the fetish scene, so he had this very vivid experience of going into a space where he should technically belong, but he felt very out of place and insecure about his body and about the things he saw. He felt so alienated at that time that it made him really think about his place in the community.

Is this personal experience also the reason why you chose this super cute and innocent-looking teddy bear as a main character?

Yes, very much. It’s also because of the gay male archetype of a bear. A lot of the other characters in the film are sort of representative of different kinks. There is a foot character, there are people in uniforms and swimsuits. All of the characters are sort of different nudges to different aspects of gay fetish culture.

Pipes (Dir. Kilian Feusi, Jessica Meier, Sujanth

There is a lot of visual overlap between the work of a plumber and activities that might occur in a gay fetish club in your film. What was interesting about creating the crossover of these two realms?

It’s just very funny. This “handy work world” feels at least to us very straight, very “macho”. When you contrast that with this flamboyant, gay culture, we thought clashing these two worlds together would be very funny and interesting. And the imagery of a pipe – you can do so much with that if you take this phallic shape and create associations. That is how all the jokes and the visual jump cuts were born.

Did Kilian, Sujanth and you have different responsibilities working on Pipes?

Yes! It was very important to us that we did the directing together. Every story, look and vibe-based decision was made together. We all animated a little bit. I animated the least out of everyone because I was also working on the backgrounds and I was also the line producer, so I organised the funding, the behind the scenes, the helpers and pipelines. Kilian is a very fast and good animator, he animated the most. Sujanth did the “big money shots”. We all did a little bit of everything, but it was distributed differently. I think the way that we worked together on Pipes, where everyone had something to say but also respected the other’s opinions and ideas was truly an ideal situation. I hope to recreate that situation.

You mentioned you made the backgrounds, how did you come up with the very distinct visual style of the film?

The original poster that Kilian drew for the pitch was also in black and white. The very bouncy and flowing style of animation we wanted to create takes a lot of time to animate. Having colours in the film takes also a lot of time as you need to work out the colour keys and colour concepts. We wanted to avoid that. The theme kind of lends itself to this black and white style. When I was designing the backgrounds we were drawing style frames to see what a finished frame of the film could look like. We had these big crowd shots with the main character, fifteen different moving characters and the background itself and it became completely unreadable. I came up with the idea of adding leather textures in the background. Everything else is flat, black and white with a little bit of shadow and highlights, but then you have these really organic textures in the background and that made it visually much easier to read what was happening. We had an amazing compositor, Marco Jörger. He mainly is a stop-motion artist and he took pictures of different leather that he found and then animated it in stop motion. He then composited it into the background.

How has the audience reception watching Pipes been so far?

It was very mixed, I would say. It has been very successful, so overall I would say it has been positive. In terms of audience reaction, whilst you’re watching it, it’s been all over the place. We’ve had screenings where we had a lot of laughter and everyone found it super funny. Then there were other times when it was screened at other festivals and there was just dead silence and I was feeling so uncomfortable. So yeah, we had a little bit of everything, but it has been amazing so far!

What is your perception of the Swiss animation industry, and how open is it towards queer themes?

The art scene in general is very queer-friendly, at least from my perspective. I am obviously in the queer bubble. I might have a skewed perspective but I feel like it is quite open. There is not really an animation industry in Switzerland, so we don’t really have that. There are a lot of small-sized, independent studios or collectives of artists, but there is not really an “industry” as you would have it in France, England or in some parts of Germany and of course in Asia or America. A lot of people that work in animation are freelancers or independent filmmakers who try and secure funding for the next project. We are very lucky to have pretty good funding for the arts, depending on where you live. We also have the GSFA (Groupement Suisse Du Film D’Animation) which is the Swiss Organisation for Animated Film. It is a huge help and really works hard to ensure that animated independent film lives on in Switzerland. We’re very proud to have that and it’s growing steadily. People who really want to go into the “industry” usually have to leave Switzerland or work remotely for a foreign studio, but there are also more and more people trying to build up something here and band together as a studio or a collective.

What has been going on in your creative life since Pipes? 

I have been doing a project for a festival that wanted me to animate an opening sequence for them and I have also been asked by a game studio to animate parts of their trailer for their upcoming game. These were gigs I worked on, but I realised after a year that I don’t really enjoy freelancing for projects that I don’t have any creative control over and I really want to focus on my own projects. In my free time I draw, I try to go to festivals, I watch a lot of movies and I am also a programmer for my local queer film festival The Pink Panorama in Lucerne. It’s happening every year in mid-November and we are currently working hard to finalise the programme that will hopefully be released in August.

Pipes will be showing at INBETWEENS – Queer Animation Screening at Cube Microplex in Bristol 8pm on July 8th in association with BAM/Encounters, and at Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre 5pm on August 23rd in association with Skwigly/CAF.

To keep up-to-date with BAM’s current and future events follow @bristol_animation_meetup on Instagram.

The post INBETWEENS Filmmaker Focus: Jessica Meier appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Curated by local animator Luzie Ilgner, the screening showcases a playful, heartfelt, and thought-provoking mix of animations that either explore LGBTQIA+ themes or are created by queer artists.

Ahead of the screening we had the chance to catch up with one of the featured filmmakers, Steven Fraser – an award winning animator and maker with a special focus on queer themes, mental health and neurodiversity in his work. His film Coming out Autistic (2022) will be part of the INBETWEENS lineup.

Coming Out Autistic (Dir. Steven Fraser)

Where did your animation journey start and did you always know you wanted to be an animator?

I think so! I was always drawing when I was younger and found it quite interesting. I would just pick up a pencil and draw. I studied Computer Arts in Dundee and that course is really focused on video games. Most of the stuff I was doing at university was more CG focused, but in my spare time I was still drawing. When I started making films, I did not want to use a computer. I wanted it to be hand drawn or puppetry because I did not want to spend all day sat in front of a computer and then go home and do that as well. I realised, for the stories I wanted to tell, I wanted to make things you can touch and hold.

Would you say the story idea inspires the medium you choose to work in, or is it the other way around?

I think it’s a bit of both. I think a lot of the short films I make are very driven by emotion and feelings. These are things that you can’t touch and hold because they are internal and I like to make them external. And that is why the mediums I go for you can touch and hold. It makes them feel a little bit more real.

It feels like your art is very focused around personal experiences and subjects…

Definitely! For Coming Out Autistic I was having conversations with people who identify as LGBT+ and are also on the autism spectrum. I identify as bisexual and I am autistic. I realised there was a connection there. A lot of people I knew were queer and also neurodiverse in some way. I also made a film called Prosopagnosia, which was more like a diary. It was about diaries that I wrote when I was younger. Prosopagnosia means face blindness, which is something that I also live with. I thought ‘instead of interviewing experts and clinical professionals, why don’t I just look at my own diaries’? I was very selective of what I showed, but I felt that was more personal and it would be an easier way to explain what it means to me. I thought people could relate to that. I think there always has to be a personal connection.

Coming Out Autistic (Dir. Steven Fraser)

What inspires you to set these themes as a focus for your art?

There are definitely reasons. In the past I have seen a lot of films about sexuality or neurodiversity, but they were made by people that were not part of those communities. I always felt like those people were trying to find a way into the story. When I talk about these subjects I can talk about experience or I can talk to other people and I am not trying to get in. As part of the community, I felt the communities could speak for themselves. So that’s why I really wanted to do it. And I just think I find personal stories more interesting.

Let’s have a closer look at Coming Out Autistic. What context did you make the film in?

I just really wanted to make a short documentary, so I interviewed different people about their experiences with coming out to other people as autistic and who also identify as LGBT+ in some way. I just had the idea for this film and it was something I wanted to do. I like interviews and talking to people. Coming Out Autistic was supposed to be made in lockdown. I started it before Prosopagnosia, but I ended up getting funding for Prosopagnosia, finished that first, and then came back to Coming out Autistic.

So this was not your first documentary-style animation?

I have made a couple of documentary films before. I made a film about voice-hearing, so about people who hear voices. It is similar to schizophrenia but they identify as someone who hears voices because there is less stigma around that.

The style of your film is super colourful. Can you tell me a little bit about the creative process behind making the film?

For the colours I was looking at different LGBT+ flags, the rainbow flags are always really colourful. I wanted to make it bright. I think a lot of times when people think of a film about sexuality and neurodiversity, they think it is going to be negative and it is going to look at what the problems are. And there is that, but I didn’t want it to be solely that.

When I was thinking about the colours, I wanted to make them bright and draw people in that way other than making it dark, moody and depressing. So I just looked at different LGBT+ flags and used them as colour palettes for the different scenes.

Coming Out Autistic (Dir. Steven Fraser)

I also noticed in the film, that you tell stories not only through interviews but on a visual level there were a lot of social media references, like dating apps for example.

I like the idea of a people coming out online. When I initially envisioned the film, it was going to be animated but I was going to put the animation on a phone and then film the phone. And then I had the great idea of animating things around the phone as well. I thought it would be interesting to put it on a dating app or in a YouTube video. People will be out on dating apps with their sexuality and also a lot of people make YouTube videos about neurodiversity and sexuality. So I thought that would be great way to represent that.

You are doing a lot of interesting work within different genres and techniques and I was just wondering what you are currently up to and what is happening in your artistic life at the moment?

I am doing a documentary lab with Sheffield documentary festival. It’s called Queer Realities, where different documentary filmmakers are pitching their ideas. We have done a series of workshops for the last couple of months. So I will hopefully be working on a feature-length film which is going to have some animation in it as well. It is about letters I wrote when I was younger and I am talking about sexuality in there as well. I want to use animation to bring those letters alive. That is what I am working on at the moment, but it is still in very early stages.

Catch Coming out Autistic as part of the INBETWEENS – Queer Animation Screening at the Cube Microplex in Bristol 8pm on July 8th in association with BAM/Encounters, and at Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre 5pm on August 23rd in association with Skwigly/CAF.

To follow Steven Fraser’s work visit stevenfraserart.com and to keep up-to-date with BAM’s current and future events follow @bristol_animation_meetup on Instagram.

The post INBETWEENS Filmmaker Focus: Steven Fraser appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.