Little Men (2019, Digital Video 4K, 25m) dir Atlas O Phoenix w/Brenden Lucas, TJ Ward, Lerea Carter, Heidi Berg, with Kevin Lokey and Toussaint Morrison.Two boys make a startling discovery on the way to school.

A multi-award-winning short taking place in 1989, Little Men is a compelling winter tale of two endearing 10-year-old boys, Andre and Marcus. Their friendship is tested after they make a startling discovery on the way to school. An existential crisis occurs after an action by one of the boys.

From poverty stricken backgrounds, Andre and Marcus are at once one and the same and completely different. Andre, coming from a family with a single mom, is being raised with dignity and aspirations. In the womb of her crack addiction, Marcus’ mother is downwardly mobile; using Marcus as a verbal punching bag. Andre aspires to a higher class than his family would indicate, while Marcus aspires to the underclass. What happens after their discovery, challenges them to think about their outlook on themselves and about the world they live in.

cord (2001, Mini Digital Video, 46m) dir Atlas O Phoenix w/Trena Bolden Fields, Marie-François Theodore, Ron Alois, Tezra Bryant. Utilizing the gritty digital filmmaking technique of Dogma 95, cord portrays the story of a young girl who tries tenaciously to free herself from a mentally, physically and financially abusive relationship with her self destructive mother.

Based on a true story and told in the tradition of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, cord, a character study, examines the raging emotional strain of a relationship that eventually spills over to a young teenage couple, forever changing the lives of all four individuals.

This One (2003, Digital Video, 4m) dir Atlas O Phoenix w/ rapper Brown Child. Late recording artist, Brown Child and friends throw a house party on frozen Lake Osseo in an ice shanty in the dead of winter.

Do I Qualify for Love? (2020, Digital Video, 15m) dir Atlas O Phoenix w/Atlas O Phoenix. Shot on a cellphone, with a budget of $28, Do I Qualify for Love? is a short experimental documentary that tells the autobiographical story of Trans-Masculine, Black, Disabled, Nonbinary identified award-winning filmmaker, Atlas O. Phoenix, as they revisit their past on the eve of an abusive night with their parents.

Told in real-time, at age 17, and ending as a reflection from their POV at 50, Do I Qualify for Love? asks the existential question of a lifetime.

The single-camera angle and lack of music are intentional as they are telling a deeply personal story that requires your unflinching attention.

Ordinary (2022, Digital Video 4K, 12m) dir Atlas O Phoenix w/Atlas O Phoenix. “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” – Anaïs Nin

In a multi-award-winning personal experimental essay, Ordinary asks the question, “Have your eyes really seen (me?).” A patchwork quilt of intersecting identities, Ordinary, weaves together multiple storylines to explore the purpose of identifiers and their meaning. Atlas questions whether identifiers truly identify anyone.

This retrospective is funded by the Minnesota State Arts Board with the Creative Support for Individuals fiscal year 2023.

Atlas Phoenix is a fiscal year 2023 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

GoFundMe link to current project, Beautiful Boi.

https://www.beautifulboi.com/beautiful-boi-documentary

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