The coffee shop as a setting for a movie is not a new concept, but let’s be honest, it’s never really done right. In most films, the cafe is just a non-descript meet-up place, able to be interchanged freely with a bar, restaurant, park, pretty much anywhere humans go to interact with other humans. But a new feature film looks to use the uniqueness of cafe life to explore connection. Drip Like Coffee is a narrative drama about queer Black love in Brooklyn, and the film is seeking funding on Kickstarter now.
Drip Like Coffee follows the story of Kali and Mel, two Black femme baristas at a Brooklyn cafe who find themselves in an “unexpected romance”. Written and directed by Anaiis Cisco, Drip Like Coffee is an expansion of a 2018 short film that was screened at film festivals like Outfest, NewFest, and Raindance, earning Cisco the Louis D. Srybnik Film Honor in the Princess Grace Awards, a prize that “[identifies] and [elevates] emerging talent in theater, dance and film.” As a feature film, Drip Like Coffee has brought on an entire creative team to help bring the project to life, including one Rosanna Arquette as an executive producer.
For too long Black women’s voices have been silenced and their bodies objectified. A truly diverse and inclusive media landscape needs more stories by and about Black queer women. Depicting subtleties in expressions of gender and sexuality of queer characters, Drip Like Coffee attempts to render Black female subjectivity as fluid within a cinematic narrative. With this project, I want to re-inscribe Black love in cinema, a lost theme that has succumbed to one-dimensional representations of Black women. What would it mean to visualize the complexities of Black womanhood without the fear of consequence? What does Black women’s pleasure look like in cinema?
Though the total estimated cost to bring Drip Like Coffee to life is north of $200,000, for the Kickstarter Cisco is seeking $50,000 to cover the initial costs of production. With just two days left, the Kickstarter is around $1,500 away from achieving their goal as of press time. Rewards for the campaign start as low as $10 for a “digital shout-out,” with bigger money rewards including digital art by Brooklyn artist PhaFa Roy, scripts, poster art, mood boards, astrology readings, a Q&A with the crew, sweatshirts, and beyond.
For more information and to back the project visit Drip Like Coffee‘s Kickstarter page, keep up with their progress by following them on Instagram, and check out this interview with director Anaiis Cisco on The Chocolate Barista.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
