Screens Friday, September 19, at 11:45 AM at the historic Camelot Theatres (2300 East Baristo Road. Palm Springs, CA 92262. https://www.psculturalcenter.org/filmfest/
By Jim Gillles & Valerie Milano
Palm Springs, CA (The Hollywood Times) 9/19/25 -Timely and important is the latest short film directed by Brandon Deyette – KITTY (2025) – which is part of the Cinema Diverse Film Festival in Palm Springs this weekend. I do recommend seeing this short slice of human experience that takes place in urban Atlanta, Georgia, with two young people struggling to make sense of their lives in the rougher aspects of the LBGTQ+ world. We first encounter a young man AJ with a bloody face who was beat up trying to help out a worldly-wise Black trans sex work who goes by the name of Baby Girl. From the start, we are caught up in the charm and street smarts of Baby Girl who refers to the bloody AJ as her “Superman” as she takes him to an abandoned squat house in the seedier part of Atlanta.
Rafi S. Pérez as Baby Girl exudes confidence and street smarts, as she tries to take in a young 17-year-old AJ, raised in a strict Mormon house and suddenly kicked out of his family home and now a runaway desperate on the streets. Baby Girl offers AJ (Luke Bucaro) a place to crash in an abandoned squat house occupied by a slightly older pimp (Cleon Gionet), who Baby Girl knows how to manipulate. The older pimp eyes AJ as a potential replacement for one of his hustlers named Pedro. Survival in the world of Baby Girl means hustling, stealing, selling drugs, and knowing how to navigate the rough streets. Of course, AJ is extremely naïve and know nothing about such things. The initiation is sudden but dynamic, providing both actors with a chance to showcase their skills.
Packed into this 18-minute film is a sudden transformation of AJ, as he accepts Baby Girl’s tutelage which does involve drugs. The bond that begins to form between AJ and Baby Girl is credible, and even amusing, filled with a sense of play as well as trust. On the serious side is the revelation of the word “Kitty,” which is not a reference to any female body part but rather an evocative way of saying “catching HIV.” What lingers in the background is the social benefit of being a charity case because one acquires HIV – a dangerous but likely outcome of casual sex work. AJ and Baby Girl play a game of dare about the sex – about which AJ knows next to nothing. Against the neon-lit night of the Atlanta cityscape and lost in a drug-like sense of reality, this film leaves us to ponder what will happen to these two young people. Special credit to the fine performance of Rafi S. Perez as Baby Girl – which is the cement that holds the film together so well.
The story seems to reflect the interests and background of its writers – Brandon Deyette, who is an outspoken filmmaker and storyteller with a background in documentary filmmaking, and Emmy Morgan, a Black trans female with a gift for poetry and writing. Brandon is active within the Queer community focusing on rights, representation, and exploring its diversity. He is known for his previous film work with 1000-lb Sisters (2020), a television series Ladies Who List: Atlanta(2020), and Black Ink Crew New York (2012). His feature-length film Later Day Glory (2025) is also in the festival.
The two writers have known each other a long time and Brandon suggested in an phone interview with me that Emmy was superb at making the language of Baby Girl credible. Brandon has had his earlier short Proxy (2015) at this Cinema Diverse Film Festival as well as an earlier iteration of Later Day Glory: The Aftermath of Growing Up Queer in the Mormon Community (2018). The later film has been completely rewritten and augmented and screens at the Cinema Diverse Film Festival on Sunday, April 20, at 12 noon at the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs. For tickets and passes to films at the Cinema Diverse Film Festival, go to: https://cinemadiversethepalmspringslgbtqfilmfestival.festivee.com/passes.
