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Wild Darlings Sing the Blues (And It’s a Song of Freedom) is a feature-length documentary that follows a collective of six black queer women living in New York City. They set out on a spiritual journey to build a healing sanctuary on a former slave plantation in Virginia to address ancestral trauma and channel personal pain into performance art.   

The Wild Darlings access reparations through ancestral healing and set out from Harlem to a Virginia plantation to bear witness to the legacy of slavery, a journey to the site of one of America’s core traumas. This exterior journey mirrors the internal journey of each cast member: to revisit painful memories and to find the healer within. This collective approaches healing through the lens of spirituality. For the Wild Darlings this looks like connecting with the wisdom of their ancestors, a long lineage of resilient people who came before them.

This film follows the Wild Darlings beginning in 2019 when they gather in an indigenous sanctuary in upstate New York, led by wise elders Grandmother Sangoma and Mother Jaguar, participating in sacred ceremonies and exploring their experiences of racial and gender-based violence.

This experiment is led by director, Nova Scott-James, who formed the Wild Darlings Collective at a critical point in her personal healing journey. In 2017 after leaving an abusive relationship, Nova had an emotional breakdown that almost cost her her life. At rock bottom, it was the spirit of her recently deceased grandmother that came to her and offered strength.

Nova set out on a healing path and offered the Wild Darlings the practices she’d used her entire life to process the trauma of being sexually abused. Since early childhood, Nova has directed films and performance art to process that pain. 

Each member of the collective is tasked with channeling their personal pain into performance art that interweaves throughout the film. We learn more about each of the Wild Darlings throughout the week on the plantation through ceremonies, talking circles, and one-on-one interviews, creating a vulnerable and authentic view of healing experiences. 

Meet the Wild Darlings Healing Arts Collective

The stories of The Wild Darlings Healing Arts Collective 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…

Nova Darling (she/her)

Filmmaker, healer and creativity and innovation doula from Harlem, NYC, and founder of the Wild Darlings Healing Arts Collective and lead protagonist of the film. 

Timme Darling (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.

Dew 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.

Big J Darling (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.

Coyote Darling (she/her)

Biracial artist and meditation facilitator of African and Hungarian decent.  She holds community wellness events at her family owned business, Tumbleweed, an eclectic retail store and wellness space in Brooklyn, NYC.

Antoinette Darling (we/us)

Writer, rainmaker and TEDx speaker committed to the liberation of Black bodies, they’re the founder of Black Exhale, holds a B.A. from Cornell University, a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University, and sits on the board of Narrative Medicine at CUNY School of Medicine.

Grandmother Sangoma Oludoye (she/her)

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!

”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.

Catherine Adunni, Mother Jaguar (she/her)

Catherine (Mother Jaguar) Adunni leads Shamanic ceremonies and shamanic plant and medicine music integrations after being initiated by her teachers Haru & Hayra Kuntanawa from Brazil and mentored by other indigenous shamans she has sat with over the past 8 years to pursue this path. Her high intentions and respect for ceremony honor the authentic practices and evoke powerful healing and nurturing in her presence. She is blessed with a ceremonial singing voice and has received songs from the spirit teachers which she uses to aid and amplify the healing of others. Her singing provides a vocal counterpart, blending beautiful ceremonial chants and sounds to maximize your healing experience. Mother Jaguar gently calls for your soul to come back home. Catherine Adunni is in service to the Divine as a powerful medicine mother, claircognizant empath, relationship coach, Tarot coach, and mentor. She has hosted several workshops ushering in the Divine Feminine and Masculine through events like Sound baths, Medicine Women -Red Tent, Shamanic journeys, and has a group dedicated to creating healthier relationships called Yin & Yang Conversations for Women and Men. She has dedicated her life to understanding the many roots of suffering.


Meet the Production Team

Nova Scott-James (she/her)

Director + Producer 

Nova Scott-James is a Black queer filmmaker and artist from Harlem, NYC. Her childhood experience of being flooded with jazz has impacted her creative aesthetic greatly as her work honors altered states of consciousness, improvisation and collaboration. Her films span documentary, narrative, and hybrid storytelling and often incorporate elements of performance art. Her short film Nova: ANewSpellingof My Name premiered at the Camden International Film Festival in 2021, and screened at ARoSKunstmuseum in Aarhus, Denmark. Two of her shortsMyThirdEye and Handmade in Thamaga have premiered at the New York African Film Festival at Film@Lincoln Center in 2015 and 2017. Nova is currently directing her first feature, Wild Darlings Sing the Blues (And It’s a Song of Freedom), a hybrid documentary following a black/queer healing arts collective as they embark on a pilgrimage to a former slave plantation to build a healing sanctuary on the land.

Flor de oro Tejada (she/they)

Producer

Flor Tejada is a multidisciplinary filmmaker and creative producer from the Bronx, New York. She’s produced branded content and creative non-fiction shorts for clients including Condé Nast, AT&T, Vox Creative, Pfizer, Amazon Web Services, Comcast, Time Inc.,Tribeca Studios, P&G and many more. Flor graduated from the Kanbar Institute of Film & Television school at New York University Tisch School of the Arts and her films have screened at AFI FEST, Allied Media Conference, Camden International Film Festival, Seattle Trans Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival, Afrikana Independent Film Festival, Odù Film Festival Brazil and more. Her latest film Bone Black: Midwives vs. the South won the Best Short Documentary award at Blackstar Film Festival and New Orleans Film Festival in 2023. Flor is a Fellow to the 2023-2024 Sundance Documentary Producers Lab and Fellowship with her latest documentary feature, Wild Darlings Sing the Blues (And It’s a Song of Freedom.)

Todd Carter (he/him)

Executive Producer

Todd Carter is a musician, filmmaker, and teacher living in New York City. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. As a songwriter, he has released several albums with his group The Looking and makes music for TV shows. As a filmmaker, he has written and produced several short films. When not making music and films, Todd works as a teacher in the Ridhwan School.

Abou Farman (he/they)

Executive 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.
 

Press

Articles:

DEADLINE: Sundance Institute Sets Fellows For 2023 Producers Lab And Intensive

PRESS RELEASE: 2023 Sundance Institute Producers Lab and Intensive Fellows Announced

'Wild Darlings': A Film About Finding Healing in Nature

Nova Scott James on Consciousness and Decolonizing Identity

 

A note from director, Nova Scott-James: 

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 for all your support!

For more updates, please check out: https://linktr.ee/wilddarlings

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