At The Threshold: A Short Film

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Hello!

For those of you who don't know me, my name is April, I'm a writer and I'm embarking on my first short film next month. It's been a long time coming and I wanted to share more about this project.

At The Threshold: A Short Film

Logline: A recently widowed father and his son still reeling from the last storm that hit their neglected community are unable to flee when alerted that another storm is on its way. With no place to go and no expectations for help, they soon discover the promise of their water supply could be an unconventional refuge.

WHY IS THIS STORY IMPORTANT?

Being a Brooklyn native it was to my surprise when I discovered that right in my own backyard there was a community of Black and Brown residents living on the border of Brooklyn and Queens, in a small area about 30 feet lower than the surrounding area, and not connected to the city’s sewer system. This area named The Hole, experiences severe flooding when it rains without any system to provide drainage and without much support from the city government. I wanted to imagine what people of color would have to resort to and what choices they’d have to make if their already neglected community continued to go unsupported in the face of a natural disaster.

Communities of color are disproportionately affected by climate change. And Black Americans have a complicated history with this land. With my short film I want to dramatize one family's attempt to uncomplicate their future.

WHAT WILL "AT THE THRESHOLD" LOOK LIKE?

MEET THE TEAM!

April Guscott - Writer - Director

April Guscott is a queer Jamaican American writer from and currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. Raised by immigrant parents, her work examines the nature of multiple dueling cultural identities, the concept of home, and what aspects of self we inherit and acquire. With the assistance of science fiction and horror genres, what she finds to be natural settings for minority stories, April champions black queer femme visibility, and representations of non-American Blackness in her narrative storytelling.

In 2019, April was one of the inaugural Black TV & Film Collective Rising Writers Lab fellows where she workshopped her TV pilot Disconnect. Disconnect is a one-hour drama and study on the violence and loss that male-gazing homophobia predicates for Black queer women, their families, advocates and community inheritors.

Cyrille Phipps - Producer

Cyrille Phipps is a media educator and filmmaker in New York City. She has over twenty years of production experience, working on music videos, short films, documentaries, webisodes, and transmedia projects. As a documentary filmmaker, editor, and cameraperson, she has collaborated on projects that have aired on PBS, TNT, and the BBC on important cultural figures such as Muhammad Ali, Mumia Abu Jamal and Malcolm X.

She was the co-founder of Black Planet Productions, which produced the award-winning grassroots series Not Channel Zero- the revolution, televised. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in Media Studies who also lives and works with

several community-based organizations in Brooklyn. As a content producer with a history of creating grassroots projects and documentaries, she understands the importance of making media that is engaging and has a social impact.