hays code collaborative film project

the hays code film project looks back at the motion picture production code (1930s–1960s) — a set of rules that shaped hollywood into a machine of moral conformity. banning “perversion,” miscegenation, seduction and even “lustful kissing,” the code policed bodies and desires while enforcing narrow ideals of family, faith and propriety.

working with found moving images from youth, we assemble a poetic counter-archive — a dialogue across distance and time. the collaboration speaks to growing up queer within a culture of silence where desire was coded, concealed or erased outright.

through a back-and-forth exchange of poetics and image, the project becomes an act of commitment, support and relative resolution. it reclaims the charged absences left by the code, transforming them into a shared space of visibility — one where queerness is not hidden but named, held and sustained.