WATCH: Robin Shanea Williams’ short film

Given our well-documented disgust regarding Hollywood’s lack of diversity, and the lack of attention and deserved acclaim for filmmakers of colour, we’re more than happy to play our part in promoting work that deserves to be seen.
Brought to our attention by the Twitter account Media Diversified (@writersofcolour), who brilliantly address issues of racial equality and representation, Robin Shanea Williams’ (@rshanea722) award-winning short Contamination is a promising and evocative work about mental illness. The film focuses on Jade, a woman who suffers from severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. OCD has made her a shut-in and her anxiety has increased so greatly that just to open her door she must wear a surgical mask and gloves for protection. The film is available now on Vimeo, and we’re delighted to be able to share the link with you.
Though it shouldn’t be a novel prospect, the film’s representation of its nuanced and multi-dimensional characters highlights how rarely audiences are exposed to films with an entirely black cast, when the film isn’t specifically about race. The film industry desperately needs more stories that explore the vast multitudes of identities and experiences, instead of relegating filmmakers and characters of colour to stories purely about race, while films featuring White characters are allowed to navigate the whole range of human experience.
Writing about race and representation, author Junot Diaz asks “You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist?" And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.”
If films are to act as an accurate cultural reflection of society, there needs to be more emphasis placed on brilliant, nuanced storytelling about people of colour that show a range of characters and experiences, not just the one-dimensional and problematised image that Hollywood so often presents. We’re delighted that filmmakers like Williams are taking it upon themselves. For our part, we’ll support these stories, and pass them on to you.

Contamination- A short film by R. Shanea Williams from Anthony Davis on Vimeo.