Shoulders Deep

Access to Films Requires a Butterfly Subscription

Aniya Wingate is a radiant and talented African American dancer in high school in Houston, who was displaced from her home for half a year by Hurricane Harvey. Shoulders Deep translates her experience of displacement through dance, poetry, and performance. Aniya’s fear, despair, and alienation give way to the salvation, comfort, and love of family and village, where she finds the support to transform trauma into artistic expression. The film is about the existential threat to our home in the era of climate chaos and the regenerative power of coming back home after disaster strikes. Love is central to Aniya’s journey of recovery, and her movement becomes the physical expression of that love.

Shoulders Deep – Full Film

8 min., 2020

Awards and Honors

Redford Center Grant, 2018-2019

Documentary Short Winner, Dallas VideoFest’s DocuFest, 2020

Eric Moe Award for Best Short on Sustainability, Finalist, Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital, 2021 

Best Very Short Documentary, Angeles Doc Film Festival, 2021 

Finalist, Golden Short Film Festival, 2021

Film Festival Screenings

Ashland Independent Film Festival, 2021 

Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival, 2021 

International Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival, 2021 

Green Screen Environmental Film Festival (Trinidad and Tobago), 2021

NHdocs: the New Haven Documentary Film Festival, 2021

Angeles Doc Film Festival, 2021

Maupintown Film Festival, 2021

Reel Pride Film Festival (Houston, TX), 2021

NorthwestFest International Documentary Festival, 2021

Golden Short Film Festival, 2021

Thin Line Fest, 2021

Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital, 2020

Hayti Heritage Film Festival, 2021

Denton Black Film Festival, 2021

Dallas VideoFest’s DocuFest, 2020

EarthX Film Festival (Dallas, TX), 2020 

Original Thinkers Festival, 2019 (Work-in-Progress)