Consider the Rainbow

FRANKIE WILLIS is a formerly incarcerated, queer protagonist whose determination to leave behind a life of poverty and violence in order to choose herself is at odds with her deep love for her daughter TASHAWN, her granddaughter, KAILA, and the pride she has in Atlanta, the place she’s lived all of her life.

When she’s unable to find meaningful employment after returning home from prison, she decides a move from the south to the Pacific Northwest holds the answer to a fresh start. She lands at a shelter in Seattle and instantly begins to find community amongst a motley crew of characters that support her on her journey. But it is the reconnection with an old prison cellmate that proves to be the most transformative relationship of all.

  • Shontina Vernon
    Director
    Grrrl Justice
  • Shontina Vernon
    Writer
    Grrrl Justice
  • Ebony Blanding
    Writer
    A Mess of Memories, Jordan
  • Ty Defoe
    Writer
    Hamlet/Horatio
  • Jéhan Ósanyín
    Writer
    Know Your Place, Grrrl Justice
  • Kiah Clingman
    Producer
    Color Book, Her Pretty Vagina, Thomasville
  • Lara Davis
    Producer
  • Dred Carpenter
    Key Cast
    "Frankie"
    Found, No Cap, Between Women
  • Tina Shakiyah Powell
    Key Cast
    "Tashawn"
    College Boyfriends (web series), Finding Happy
  • Denise Santos
    Key Cast
    "Xiomara"
    The Resident, Long Slow Exhale
  • Project Type:
    Television
  • Genres:
    Comedy, Drama
  • Runtime:
    48 minutes 30 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 10, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    225,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States, United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States, United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Shontina Vernon

Shontina Vernon is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and musician exploring Black subjectivities, intergenerational legacies around healing and trauma, and queerness. Drawing from her early experiences with the carceral system, her work experiments to disrupt narratives of erasure and to investigate power and potentiality at the intersection of race, gender, and class. She is an Art for Justice Grantee, a Creative Capital Awardee, and a Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellow. Currently, Vernon serves as Lead Producer of the Visionary Justice StoryLab, a film hub and collective working to evolve narratives that are rooted in liberatory frameworks. She received her MFA from the University of Washington and is currently developing her first full-length feature film alongside a four part limited series for which Consider the Rainbow is the pilot.

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Director Statement

I’m interested in the place where the sacred and the secular converge. I am inspired by the journey taken from silence to speaking, fear to bravery and compassion, and finally from invisibility to being seen. I write about characters who, while seeking, meet themselves in the most unusual ways on the road. They are ordinary folks, with ordinary lives, trying to find meaning where often there appears to be none. They are not just dreamers, but people with rich interior lives and hidden talents choosing between who they know themselves to be and what's expected of them.