With their second film, Shatara Michelle Ford (Test Pattern) puts their singular stamp on the American road movie. Dreams in Nightmares, which stars Denée Benton (The Gilded Age) and Jasmin Savoy Brown (Yellowjackets, Scream 7) follows a group of queer friends in their mid-30s navigating love, identity, and belonging across America. Anchored in themes of chosen family and self-discovery, the film blends humor and emotional depth against the backdrop of a journey through the Midwest and beyond. Dreams in Nightmares is an expansive and tender ode to the chosen family and to the radical act of claiming space to dream—and to exist—in an increasingly fraught country.

Berlinale

BFI Flare

Pink Apple Film Festival

Queer Frames

Champs Élysées Film Festival

Taipei Film Festival

Bildrausch Filmfest Basel

GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival

Roffa mon Amour

SCENE Manchester's LGBTQ+ Film & TV Festival

Oslo Pix

Jakarta World Cinema

Mix Milano

Queer Film Festival Utrecht

Hamburg International Queer Film Festival

Mix Copenhagen

Scottish Queer IFF

American Film Festival

Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF)

Chéries-Chéris, festival international du film LGBTQ&+

Pink Panorama

BlackStar Film Festival

NewFest

InsideOut

WorldPride

Frameline

CinemaQ

Twisted Arts

Reeling Film Festival

Out On Film

Reel Q International Film Festival

ImageOut Film Festival

Houston Cinema Arts Festival

Outfest

2026 / 128 mins / USA, UK, Taiwan

English with English subtitles

Writer & Director: Shatara Michelle Ford

Producers: Pin-Chun Liu, Shatara Michelle Ford, Naïma Abed, Adam Wyatt Tate

Producers: Josh Peters, Robina Riccitiello, Ben Stillman, Tim Headington, Tyler Bagley, Chris Quintos Cathcart 

Executive Producers: Yu-Hao Su, Lia Bunman, Jacqueline W. Liu, Annie Yang, Liska Ostojic, Emilie Georges 

Cast: Denée Benton, Mars Storm Rucker, Dezi Bing, Sasha Compere, Charlie Barnett, Molly Bernard, Alfie Fuller, Malek Mouzon, Joss Barton, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Regina Taylor, Robert Wisdom

Director of Photography: Ludovica Isidori 

Editor: Cyndi Trissel 

Production Designer: Eloise Ayala 

Costume Designer: Mikhaela Zabalerio  

Music Composer: Lia Ouyang Rusli 

Music Supervisors: Alison Rosenfeld, Kayla Monetta 

Sound Designer: Thomas Ouziel 

Casting Director: Rebecca Dealy

Shatara Michelle Ford (Director & Producer)

Shatara Michelle Ford (they/she/their) is an African American filmmaker born in Arkansas, raised in Missouri, and based in Los Angeles. Ford’s films explore memory, perception, alienation, isolation, America and Americanness; all the while interrogating systems of oppression through characters who must live, survive, thrive, or languish within them. Ford’s script, Queen Elizabeth, was featured on the 2017 Black List. Their debut feature TEST PATTERN was released by Kino Lorber in 2021 to critical acclaim, landing on over a dozen Best of 2021 lists. It received three Gotham Award nominations including Best Feature, four Spirit Award Nominations including Best First Feature, an NAACP Image Award nomination, and won prizes from San Francisco Film Critics Circle, Austin Film Critics Association, Women Film Critics Circle, New Orleans Film Festival, and BlackStar Film Festival. Additionally, Ford was awarded the prestigious New Generation prize by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and is a 2021 Pew Fellow.