Pure
Feature-Length Film in Development
Logline
For 17-year-old Celeste, moving to her grandmother’s affluent Black community means following family tradition and becoming a debutante… but she longs for a different kind of coming out.
In February 2022,
the proof-of-concept for Pure written and directed by Natalie Jasmine Harris premiered on HBOMax. The short received The Directors Guild of America’s Student Film Award and screened at over 40 film festivals worldwide.
Now, writer-director Natalie Jasmine Harris is teaming up with award-winning producer,
Avril Speaks, and co-writer, Yoko Kohmoto, to expand this story into a feature-length film.
Genre(s):
Coming of Age, Dramedy, Family Drama, LGBTQ+
Budget:
$5-7M
Project Support:
- Film Independent Amplifier Grant (2024)
- Film Independent Fast Track Financing Forum (2022)
- The Women In Film (WIF) and Sundance Institute Financing Intensive (2022)
- InsideOut: Toronto LGBTQ+ International Financing Forum (2022)
- SFFILM Rainin Grantee in Screenwriting (2021)
- The Gotham Week Project Market, U.S. Features (2021)
- The Outfest Screenwriters Lab (2021)
- Advanced to Round 2 of The Sundance Institute Development Track (2021)
- Finalist for The Black List x Women In Film Feature Residency (2021)
- Finalist for The Athena Film Festival Writers Lab (2020)
- Finalist for The New Orleans Film Festival’s Narrative South Pitch Competition (2020)
Natalie Jasmine Harris
Writer/Director
Natalie Jasmine Harris is an award-winning Black queer filmmaker from Maryland. Her work is centered around a mission to tell stories that capture coming-of-age experiences and reimagine liberation for marginalized communities. Natalie's forthcoming short film, Grace, had its world premiere at The 2024 Sundance Film Festival. She has participated in artist programs with Film at Lincoln Center, GLAAD, SFFILM, Outfest, and is currently a 2024/2025 Sundance Ignite Fellow. PURE, her NYU thesis short film, received The Directors Guild of America's Student Film Award and was acquired by HBOMax. Natalie is currently in development on a feature-length version of Pure, which she hopes to become her debut feature. The project has garnered support from SFFILM's Rainin Screenwriting Grant, The Gotham Week Project Market, Outfest's Screenwriting Lab, The Toronto LGBTQ+ Financing Forum, Film Independent Fast Track, and The Women In Film x Sundance Financing Intensive. Natalie’s work has been featured in Teen Vogue, THEM Magazine, Huffington Post, The Cut, NBC, and more.
Yoko Kohmoto
Co-Writer
Yoko Kohmoto is an eldest child of immigrants, a Leo, and a producer-writer based in NYC. Her work has been showcased in Tribeca Film Festival, Vimeo Staff Picks, Frameline, and CAAMFest, among others. Her priorities as a producer are to build community, ensure safety, and uplift marginalized voices. As a writer, she is interested in humor as a tool to have important conversations. In 2024, she created an initiative to make spaces for women and nonbinary artists of color in the NYC film industry. She also manages educational programming at The Gotham Film & Media Institute. Yoko holds an MFA from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s from Northwestern University.
Avril Speaks
Producer
Avril Speaks has been carving out her path as a bold, innovative storyteller for years, not only as a Producer and Director but also as a film mentor and advocate through Film Independent, the Sundance Institute, and Distribution Advocates, and formerly as a professor at Howard University. Avril has produced several award-winning films including Jinn, which premiered at SXSW and won Special Jury Recognition for Writing, and the South African film African America, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and four African Movie Academy Awards. She also produced the documentary Black America Is…, which premiered at the Afrikana Film Festival and won Best Feature Documentary at various film festivals. As a director and showrunner, Avril has worked with companies such as Now This and Vox Media Studios on docu-series such as Uprooted, Keep This Between Us, and Files of the Unexplained, which debuted as the #1 show on Netflix during its entire first week. Avril is a recipient of the inaugural Dear Producer Award, the Sundance Momentum Fellowship, and is a recent recipient of the Film Independent/Netflix Amplifier Fellowship. She is a recurring creative advisor for Global Media Makers, and is one of the founding members of Distribution Advocates, where she hosts the podcast Distribution Advocates Presents. Avril is also a board member for the Black TV and Film Collective.