Tayarisha Poe

Tayarisha’s project, Selah and the Spades, is a multimedia film told in an epistolary format – a series of letters and documents – that focuses on the lives of three teenagers, their friendships, and the gang they run in their senior year of high school. As a filmmaker, Tayarisha is committed to the representation of young women of color in roles that upset the media’s stiflingly limited character opportunities. In addition, Selah and the Spades seeks to challenge how we see and define feature films through its innovative, entirely online format, which will allow it to reach individuals without access to exclusive festivals and theaters.

Tayarisha will create Selah and the Spades a series of film and photograph vignettes. The main character of the film is Selah, a cheerleader-cellist-valedictorian-gang member who is falling out with her best friend Max. The story will explore friendships among teenagers and question ideas around gender and race in a fictional Pennsylvania town.