Leather Graves

Director / Cinematographer / Editor: Malic Amalya

Original Score / Sound Design: Nathan Hill

Color Grading / Sound Mixing: Clovis Stocchetti

A charcoal rubbing of multiple gravestones that says, "Leather Graves" in all caps. Below are charcoal rubbings of flowers. Faintly in the background are abstract shapes created by double exposing the drawing and a broken chain-link fence.

16MM WITH OPTICAL SOUND

12 minutes

2025

STARRING: Carmen Scott, Frankie Symonds, Killah Croc, Lindsey Rae, Marten Katze,

Math-You Land-Vote, Nathan Hill, Tomás de las Casas, & W.O.V

DESCRIPTION

Queerness and death are interwoven in a frayed burial shroud. Through the rips of this tattered fabric, we witness queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people exiled from family units and shunned by their communities, while simultaneously confronting an oblivion of health disparities: AIDS, structural discrimination, state violence, physical assault, suicide, and murder. Though all non-heteronormative individuals face these terrors, trans women of color are the most vulnerable to harm.

Filmed in a graveyard and using in-camera double exposure techniques, the queers in Leather Graves defy the inherent asphyxiation of the burial shroud by devouring candy-coated blossoms in acts of self-preservation and defiance.

A double exposed image of text on a gravestone that reads, "Gay Power."

FILM SCREENINGS

29 Queer Film Festival — Horse Girl Drag Party featuring Obsidienne Obsurd & Jill Hill — The Tiny Pony Tavern; Yucca Valley, CA — 10pm, Friday, September 19, 2025

Text reads "Tran March," created by double exposing two grave stones.

Text reads "Stone Butch," created by double exposing two grave stones.

REFERENCES / RECOMMENDATIONS

Atmospheres of Violence. Eric Stanley, 2021.

Call Out Queen Zine: Mark Aguhar. Edited by Juana Peralta & Roy Pérez, 2010 - 2012.

Is the Rectum a Grave? Leo Bersani, 1987.

Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987 - 1993. Sarah Schulman, 2022.

October, 1984. Arthur Johnson Weiss, 2016.

Queer Youth are Five Times More Likely to Die by Suicide. Andrea Gibson, 2021.

Stone Butch Blues. Leslie Feinberg, 1993.

Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through. T Fleischmann, 2019.

“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1991.

CAST BIOS

Killah Croc (they/them) is a Boston based drag artist who has made a name for themself in the Boston drag scene since February 2023. Recently, Killah won the historic All-Star Mondays competition and Boston Drag Gauntlet Cycle 11. Killah also made history as one of the first drag artists to perform at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum with their drag family The House of Calypso. Don't let Killah’s simplistic approach to drag fool you; their command of the song and stage will leave you full but also wanting more. Killah uses their platform to uplift their fellow Black & Brown Trans Artists of Color.

Math-you Land-Vote (they/he/she) is a multimedia artist and musician based in Chicago.

Marten Katze (he/him) is a transsexual actor and artist living in Chicago with his lover Math-you.