Milwaukee Illuminate Film Festival 2024

Milwaukee Illuminate Film Festival is holding our second festival event, covering two days and four separate screenings. Our short film programs include diverse films made by filmmakers and artists from underrepresented and marginalised communities. We have a wonderful mix of local, national, and international films as part of our 2024 festival. Tickets are available for individual screenings as well as a VIP ticket package that gives you access to all screenings. Cocktail hour and community building with local artists and attending filmmakers before and after our Opening Night screening on Friday, as well as before our first shorts block and after our final shorts block on Saturday.

Desire Lines (feature film) run time: 84 mins
An Iranian-American transman, Ahmad, searching for his place in history, finds more
than just a link to the past in the archives. Drawing from first-person accounts, as
well as fictionalized segments, filmmaker Jules Rosskam explores the lines of desire
as they intersect with identity for many transmen.

The miff of it All (shorts block 2) run time: 55 mins
A collection of short films from miff festival judges and miff staff: Intersecting
identities are traversed by exploration through physique, consciousness, and
community. Traditional notions of gender and sexuality are challenged, unwound,
and recontextualised. Desire and love are embraced and kept at a distance. The
fantasy of normative romance and a fish are torn apart.

Brush Strokes, Fog, & The Black Monarchy (shorts block 3) run time: 68 mins
Intimate documentary & narrative meets the surreal & crosses over into what it means to be in community via the lens of the familiar, the historical, the personal, as well as via environmentalism, social justice movements, & Afro/Indigenous Futurism.

Thirstygirl; Onion Red (shorts block 4) run time: 65 mins
A sister, a phone sex worker, an exotic dancer, & a woman with a bird house on her head all look at what it means to communicate with those around them as well as
deal with their own internal monologues. Family histories, an unexpected meeting,
the exploration of the body as a singular & communal, & a lesbian western explore what it means to be human.