BFP: Donovan Gardener - Encore Screening

Black Film as Protest: Donovan Gardener
Join us for the return of the Black Film as Protest screening series! We're launching a new season focused on radical filmmakers from the global diaspora, starting with a special evening featuring Donovan Gardener.
ENCORE SCREENING:
Noise Gate
Departure
Apotropaic

BlackMaria
Saturday, May 9, 2026
4P (Doors open)
Filmmaker in person

NOISE GATE
NOISE GATE is an experimental sci-fi short film about a dimensional traveling Scientist who is in search of the ultimate reality. His only passage into that realm is something called the NOISE GATE.
Trailer

DEPARTURE
An alien couple named Addem (Hari Williams - "Resident Evil 7", "Runner, Runner") and Efa (Natascha Hopkins - "Straight Outta Compton", "Street Fighter Resurrection") live on Earth as humans to determine whether it has suitable living conditions for their race. They are suddenly called back to their mothership. They must face a disgruntled Special Agent (Paul Statman - "CSI", "Supernatural") and growing uncontrollable human urges to stay on Earth before it's too late to return.
About the Filmmaker
Donovan J. Gardener (he/they) is an award-winning filmmaker and director of photography based in Los Angeles. A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, Gardener’s work spans narrative, documentary, and speculative cinema, with a particular focus on science fiction as a site for cultural memory, political imagination, and alternative futures.
Their films frequently center Black, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ subjectivities, engaging questions of care, labor, intimacy, and survival through formally grounded, collaborative modes of production. Gardener’s practice treats cinema as both an archival and speculative tool, blending naturalistic performance with genre frameworks to interrogate how marginalized communities navigate time, belonging, and futurity.
In addition to their independent and experimental work, Gardener has contributed to projects supported by platforms such as Netflix and HBO. They are the founder of StoryGarden Creative Agency, an artist-led production practice committed to access, authorship, and the cultivation of visual storytelling ecosystems for underrepresented communities.
About the BlackMaria Microcinema
The BlackMaria is a 40-seat brick-and-mortar space in San Francisco dedicated to cinema as study, discourse, and disruption. At its core is a cinema lens framework rooted in decolonization and abstract thinking, utilizing RDA (Rooted in Decolonization and Abstract Thinking).
Venue Details:
BlackMaria
465 South Van Ness
San Francisco
Details:
Date: Saturday, May 9, 2026
Doors at 4:00 PM
Screening at 4:30 PM
$12 Online ($15 Door)