Xan Mullings

Xan Mullings
Lawrence, MA

ARTIST STATEMENT

Marginalized identities don’t just revolve around pain and suffering. We still experience moments of immense joy, silliness, and falling in love, but at times, it is difficult to find such sentiments echoed in mainstream works of the film industry.
When I attempt to find a film with the potential to represent my own experiences as a black queer person, nearly all of them include queerbaiting, violent homophobia, racism, death, suffering, or combinations of the five. I knew I needed to create a film that didn’t fall into these problematic and detrimental tropes, so instead, I wanted to create a more holistic look into the lives of people like me. 

In the short film Landslide, Rhiannon decides to spend the summer before college with her best friend Alana. Their relationship is challenged when Alana gets a new girlfriend and Rhiannon realizes that she might not just like Alana as a friend.

Landslide is a coming of age film which covers a variety of themes including blackness, womanhood, queerness, and finding yourself. These are things I wish I could have been able to see while growing up. I hope someone sees this and finds reflections of themselves that they can’t find in mainstream media- and finds the inspiration to tell their own stories and make the world know they to exist.