Cami Thomas brings her whole self to her artwork, always. She’s a Black queer St. Louisan and her work lives in that intersection. Her latest film, Keenelan, reflects all this and is also a universal story — a meditation on love in all its messy glory, in which anyone can see themselves reflected.
After touring the world and earning plaudits at Queer Voices: New York City Film Festival (where it took Best Film/Jury’s Choice), Amsterdam Lift-Off Film Festival, Fugitive Sister Festival Cannes, the Katra Film Series, OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival, PrideFull Fest: QTBIPOC Film Festival and more, Keenelan is coming home. It’s screening at the Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF).
The movie, a love story/friend story/breakup story, follows artist Kaya (played by Thomas, in addition to her writing and directing duties) over the course of about a week as she’s preparing for both a major art showcase and an inevitable run-in with the ex-lover she’s definitely not over. Fans of Thomas’s work, including the web series Smoke City, will recognize a certain poetic, dreamy, and impressionistic filmmaking style.
“I don’t ever intentionally create things to have a signature style, but poetry is very much my first love. Poetry permeates most of the visual pieces I create,” says Thomas, a 2019 Out In STL Influencer honoree. “One of my goals was that if you pause the movie at any point, what is on the screen or what is in the frame could be a portrait or photograph.”
Writer/director/actor Cami Thomas.
With a runtime of 34 minutes, it’s the longest work Thomas has made to date, and that brought unique challenges.
“I had to slow down in order to get the shots that I wanted, to make it feel like something that felt like truly me and not just how I see but how I feel,” says Thomas. “It’s like, let’s sit down here for a while, actually soak into the moment.”
Being on both sides of the camera, too, was tricky.
“Acting and directing in a film that I wrote was tough to say the least—I underestimated how challenging that would be,” she says.
She credits the technical excellence and sympatico artistic processes of her team, My Friends and I, with allowing the film to come to full fruition.
“I had an absolutely stellar team with me,” she says. “Everyone was on their p’s and q’s.”
Another St. Louis impresario, Mvstermind, scored the film. Thomas says he was an important creative partner as well as providing infrastructural support, a hallmark of how he operates among the city’s creatives.
“Honestly, his touch on the film made it what it is,” she says. “The tonality, the setting, the mood, if there’s anxiety in a moment, if there’s love in a moment. Our creative processes are very similar in that we both go inwards so we can transmit what’s going on inside and make it into something tangible that someone else can hear and see.”
Keenelan: the artist at work. Courtesy of Cami Thomas.
The movie is filmed and set in St. Louis, and Thomas wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I think I am who I am and I create what I create because of the fact that I live in St. Louis and love St. Louis and have grown up here,” she says. It’s a timestamp of a moment in the city—you’ll see Cherokee Street’s Love Bank Park, but before its renovation, among other recognizable spots. Thomas wanted to show off the city to outsiders, but to also make something that St. Louisans would recognize as their own, on a deep level.
“I think my biggest hope is that people see this and realize and understand that here in St. Louis we have everything we need to make high-quality art that can move the needle culturally, that can get global recognition like this film has done,” she says. “I wanted it to be a win for St. Louis, not just for me.”
At press time, the 7 p.m. screening on Thursday November 7 at Brown Hall Auditorium on Wash U’s campus was sold out.
