A collaboration between EE Miller and Bernadine Mellis, Cash Free is a documentary-fantasy hybrid about the search for new possibilities in collective living.Featuring Juanita Nelson, Dean Spade, Ryder Cooley, Xylor Jane, Andrea Lawlor, Naima Lowe, Bernadine Mellis, and Miranda Mellis.
farm-in-the-city
Another collaboration between EE Miller and Bernadine Mellis. 8mm footage from the 1930s edited with EE Miller’s interview with Corinna Press, an artist who imagines giant possibilities, ecstatic collaboration and struggle. Screenings include MadCat Women's International Film Festival, MIX NYC, SF's The Lab, and Third Street Gallery in Philadelphia.
born
"A bittersweet narrative of the moviemaker's home birth on her parents' bed...Explores the primal transition from a comfortable internal space to a dysfunctional home."
- SF Weekly
In BORN, Bernadine Mellis's first film, a 16mm color short, a woman narrates the unusual circumstances of her birth at home, onto her parents' adultery-charged conjugal bed. As she recounts this story, which she claims to remember fully, she also recalls the life she lived before this one, and how she died of a broken heart as a young man. The film reveals the strangeness of being summoned by, and one day arriving in the middle of, a heterosexual couple's home and relationship. BORN brings genuine curiosity and humour to the question of true love, and hints at the mystery and extravagant beauty of entering the world.
Made while Bernadine was a student in Temple University's MFA program in film, BORN received a Kodak Award and a Motion Picture Association Award. It has screened nationally at festivals and galleries including LadyFest East (NYC), Galapagos Gallery (Brooklyn), The Pioneer Theater (NYC), The Lab's "Inside of Inside" (SF), and the Third Street Gallery (Philadelphia).
contact: bernadine.mellis@gmail.com
