100 Creatives: Faren Humes' Films Explore Resistance by People of Color

Filmmaker Faren Humes delivers work that feels relevant and necessary. Her short film Our Rhineland, about two sisters who took on the Third Reich as it rendered mixed-race Germans sterile, has earned her a Director’s Guild of America Student Film Award and an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences College Television Award. In Miami, where she also teaches film, Humes was recently made the first recipient of the Miami Film Development Project’s Afro-Diasporic Film Fund — an award perfectly suited to Humes, whose artist statement emphasizes her exploration of resistance methods by people of color. “The inherent need for freedom, and how it manifests as resistance once threatened by systems of oppression, is strung throughout all of [my] subject matter,” she explains. Three films — Nasir, Our Rhineland, and now Macho — are under her belt, and we can’t wait to see what’s next.

Macho teaser from Canopy Jones on Vimeo.

List five things that inspire you. 
Social issues-oriented, current and/or historical events
When my filmmaker friends show up and show out.
Human behavior.
Black girls from around the way.
Black mamas from back in the day.

What was your last big project?
Macho. It’s a short film and visual pitch for a feature I wrote two years ago. Macho follows the killing of a local transgender woman as it causes a rift within the small, rural town of Sanderson, Florida, and tests the tenuous bond of a conservative uncle and his effeminate nephew.

What’s your next big project?
Macho. I’ve been developing the feature-length version of the film for almost two years. Where the short introduces us to the world and characters of Sanderson, the feature schools us on the culture and rules of the town. It delves into each character, their differences, and explores what ties them together. We begin with Macho’s biological father’s story — a wanderer and free spirit — as he comes back into Macho and Uncle James’ life. We shift to Uncle James as he wrestles to protect Michelle but uphold his own personal values. We end with Macho as he grapples with the changes and blatant differences between the two people who mean the most to him.

I’m also working on a project with Borscht Corp. later this year. Majik Proxy is a psychedelic thriller based on the true events surrounding the murder of a Haitian voodoo priest in Miami.

What do you want Miami to know about you?
I will almost never be at the party.

What don’t you want Miami to know about you?
I almost always want to be at the party.

What’s one thing you want people to know about Miami?
It’s quite complex. Tons of niche groups and tribes to navigate.