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Wild Darlings Sing The Blues is a feature-length documentary following The Wild Darlings, a healing arts, and media collective of black women and non-binary artists, as they embark on an epic road trip from New York to a plantation in Mississippi.
Accompanied by 3 wise elders, the 8 Darlings are tasked with harnessing their collective spiritual gifts, to bless the plantation land and honor their ancestors. As the group explores their experiences of racialized and gender-based violence, they create a performance art homage to The Blues.
This visionary film invites viewers to connect with the healer within themselves. Wild Darlings is a visionary alchemical union of spiritual activism and ancient healing arts.
To be a Wild Darling is to be someone who has the courage to transmute suffering.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
- Carl Jung
So how did we get here?
We created a retreat in the woods in August 2019. We camped out and lived on an indigenous sanctuary in upstate New York and dedicated the community to ancestral healing work. We meditated, sat in sweat lodge ceremonies, participated in talking circles with wise elders, and made performance art. It was on this land that we began a journey of spiritual reparation.
The Wild Darlings approach abuse through the lens of ancestral trauma. This journey to the site of America’s core wound is a physicalization of the work done by each cast-member: to revisit painful memories, and to alchemize suffering into wisdom and magic.
“You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.” – Maya Angelou
The stories of The Wild Darlings are important information necessary for the collective spiritual repair that’s required right now on this planet.
The film pays homage to all black and queer artists that have found power in transmuting pain into creative intelligence. Bessie Smith, Prince, Little Richard, Billie Holiday…
Timme Larode (she/her)
Young and powerful facilitator of shamanic drum journeys from Trinidad and Tobago. She uses drum medicine, the way of her ancestors, and visions from her dreams to assist her in being of service to people.
Éva-Milan Zsiga aka Coyote (she/her)
Biracial artist and meditation facilitator of African and Hungarian descent. She holds community wellness events at her family-owned business, Tumbleweed, an eclectic retail store and wellness space in Brooklyn, NYC.
Dew Baby Darling (she/they)
Brooklyn-based designer by way of Houston, Texas and Nigeria. Seeking to replicate Nigerian life in Houston, she takes on the task of rehoming within.
Danae Howard (she/her)
AKA #Artschoolscammer
Black American conceptual artist of the underground surrealist art movement. She has worked with some of the biggest names in the art world, but chooses to stay on the fringes of the scene.
Nia Calloway (she/her)
A multi-disciplinary performance artist, astrologer, and healer with an intense passion for words, sound, movement, and the symphony of our bodies.
Jeleine Toussaint aka Big J (she/he/they)
Passionate poet and marijuana entrepreneur from Harlem, NYC. She dreams of one day owning a dispensary to continue to share this powerful medicine.
Nova Scott-James (she/they)
Filmmaker, healer, and creativity and innovation doula from Harlem, NYC, and founder of the Wild Darlings Healing Arts Collective.
Meet our production team!
A motley crew of filmmakers and spiritual teachers
Nova Scott James (she/they)
Director/ Co-Producer
Nova Scott-James is a filmmaker, artist and creative coach from Harlem, NYC.
Her childhood experiences of being flooded with the sounds and culture of jazz has impacted her creative aesthetic greatly as her work honors improvisation, altered states of consciousness, ritual and collaboration.
Nova is also a reiki practitioner and dedicated intuitive worker – she uses these abilities to serve people as a director and creative coach by guiding them in honoring their creative genius.
Reel: https://vimeo.com/292446951
Website: https://mothershipalchemy.com
Flor Tejada (she/her)
Co-Producer/ Editor
Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, Flor Tejada is a producer and co-founder of NextRound Productions, a full-service video production company specializing in online branded content and documentaries. She’s produced content for Condé Nast, Teen Vogue, AT&T, Amazon, Comcast, Qualcomm Technologies, Time Inc., SoulCycle, Save the Children, JDC, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and many more. Flor has produced several short films that have appeared in Children’s International Festival, LA Comedy Festival, NYC Big Apple Horrorfest, and NY Shorts International Film Festival.
A graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a multi-passionate filmmaker, she’s most recently served as director of photography and producer for the short film “Nova: A New Spelling of My Name” directed by Nova Scott-James, which tells the story of queer Black women embarking on an honest exploration of trauma as a means to transform pain. As a first-generation Latinx American, Flor is passionate about elevating women of color through filmmaking and political activism.
Todd Carter (he/him)
Co-Producer
Todd Carter is an independent filmmaker and musician living in New York City. He received his MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School where he studied the history of spiritual exercises in the West. He has released several albums with his group The Looking. He is the writer, director, and producer of several short films. His most recent film Seven Prayers has been nominated for the best experimental award at McMinnville Shorts Festival. His writings on Attention will be featured in an upcoming SUNY publication. For many years, he was the co-chair of the board of directors for The Lineage Project, bringing trauma-sensitive mindfulness to young people.
Grandmother Sangoma Oludoye (She/her)
Co-Producer/ Cast
Sangoma Olodoye, is a wife of 26 years, mother of three daughters, 12 amazing Grandmasters and great-grandmother of three SUNS! Sangoma Oludoye, is a Sacred Activist, Traditional Yoruba priestess, Custodian of the Ancestors, and a daughter of the Cherokee Nation. Sangoma has brought Cultural Arts Education and Spiritual Midwifery to a beautiful myriad of communities from Unity, Maine to West Palm Beach, Florida. Spiritual Midwives are Guardians of All gates of passage between Life, Death and Rebirth. Sangoma walks in humility toward the seat of Agbasanko, an Elder with integrity in concert with many peacemakers, bridgebuilders and Lighthouses!
Art of Mentoring, Vermont
Freedom Ga.
Earthpath Education, Asheville, NC
BIPOC Shared Leadership, Nature Connection Network
Keeper of the Ancestral Fires, Earthskills Rendevous and Firefly events
HE Igberohinjade, Oyotunji African Village, African Theological Archministry
Elder, Advisor, Otun…Ile Isese, Fafa’s Earthmothers, Sacramento, Calf
”As the guardian of the Wild Darlings, I walk with a foot in both worlds. Daughter of the Yoruba, Bambara, Dogon, and Cherokee people, she weaves the Darlings’ journey into the medicine tools of transformation, sacred activism, and time travel.
This project was an eye-opener for me. I’ve never been given this deep an opportunity to observe women of color in the queer community. And the level of suicide and tragic outcomes is staggering. If people could see through their pain and see the shedding of that pain, they’d realize that pain and discomfort are medicine.“
Dropping the comfort level, we remember that we’re writing our own stories. That’s what Wild Darlings is about.”
Cameron Carr (he/him)
Associate Producer
Cameron Carr is a Video Artist and Creative Producer based out of NYC/Tokyo. As a born and bred Harlemite and Media Studies/Visual Arts double major at Pitzer College ‘15, his current focus is experimental film and propelling the active inclusion of all black narratives. Carr is also committed to making predominantly white spaces aware of racial dislocations, spotlighting systemic issues that often remain unconscious to society.
Abou Farman (he/him)
Associate Producer
Abou is a producer, artist, and anthropologist teaching at the New School for Social Research. He has long worked with award-winning director Amir Naderi, with a producer credit on ‘Vegas: Based on a True Story’, an official selection in competition at the Venice and Tribeca Film Festivals; and co-writer on ‘CUT!’, selected for Venice, Tribeca, Toronto, and Pusan. As part of the artist duo Caraballo-Farman, Abou has exhibited work internationally, including at the Tate Modern, UK, PS1/MOMA, NY, and the Havana Biennial. Published widely in Canada and the US, his essays have been nominated for a National Magazine Award in Canada and twice awarded the Critics Desk Award by Canada’s national poetry magazine. He is the author of Clerks of the Passage.
Articles:
https://www.shondaland.com/live/a22577271/wild-darlings-a-film-about-finding-healing-in-nature/
Podcast:
https://thepsychedologist.com/nova-scott-james/
Thank you for all the support! For more updates, please check out our Instagram https://www.instagram.com/wilddarlingssingtheblues and website https://mothershipalchemy.com/. Donate, share on social media, and tell your friends and family about this campaign. All of your support will help us achieve our goals.
A Note From Nova (the director) To Audiences:
I want people to understand that our stories are all woven together. The trauma I carry from my ancestors’ experience of slavery is not separate from you or occurring in another world, it’s a part of our collective story, and it’s important information for the spiritual repair required of the planet right now.
Thank you to all our donors from our Fund My Film campaign!
Steve & Amber
$1,100.00With prayer and care we gratefully acknowledge your work.
Stella Lawless
Leia Friedman
$25.00Myra & Kathi
$110.00Anonymous
$25,000.00adam feder
$50.00Sander Hicks
$50.00Anonymous
$27.50Sara Chizek
$55.00Thank you for your magic and creation!!
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