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Today & Tmrw

TODAY & TMRW is a tender and humorous portrait of two New York City high school girls, masculine-presenting Mariah and her femme best friend, Kimberly.

The film follows them as they embark on their daily after-school routine after a two-week break, a rare occurrence for the girls attached at the hip. Their typical day begins by meeting at Myrtle & Wyckoff, their usual train station in Brooklyn, from where they proceed by picking up Kimberly’s younger brother Martin, grabbing a pie from Tony’s Pizza, and spending the rest of the day together at Kimberly’s home. However, their routine is replaced by tension and jealousy when Mariah sees Kimberly cozy up with a boy at the station. While their afternoon is usually set in stone, this time, they argue about how long they haven’t spoken and what restaurant to eat from before finally settling in Kimberly’s room.

TODAY & TMRW continues as the teens explore their closeness, revealing their unspoken attraction for each other and finally uncovering Mariah’s secret—that she wears a binder and has been doing so for years without Kimberly’s knowledge.

The film lends a light into the multi-layered lives of youth of color in New York City, exploring the secrets children carry, and how quickly they have to grow up.

This is a coming-of-age story that pulls from my own and those of friends I grew up with, depicting children who grow up in cities such as New York, who are often written off and disregarded. I wrote this film to highlight the innocence and tenderness of children from New York City, offering a glimpse into how trans and queer youth exist and hold one another.

  • Mariales Diaz Batista
    Director
  • Mariales Diaz Batista
    Writer
  • Yoko Kohmoto
    Producer
    Clean Slate
  • Liat Rubin
    Producer
    Hollywood Black
  • b
    Key Cast
    "Phoenix"
    You
  • Imani Lewis
    Key Cast
    "Aniyah"
    Eighth Grade
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Romance, coming of age, lgbtq
  • Runtime:
    12 minutes 28 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 7, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    30,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English, Spanish
  • Shooting Format:
    digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Mariales Diaz Batista

Mariales Diaz is an award winning gender-expansive Dominican writer, director, producer and programmer living in New York. Their storytelling explores experiences that exist within the intersection of survival and love. Diaz’s produced work has played at film festivals such as BlackStar, SFFILM, Hot Docs, New Orleans and Palm Springs Short Fest. They have worked on the production and post-archival teams at companies such as Pilgrim Media Group, Religion of Sports, HBO Max, ESPN and Proximity Media. They are a graduate of the SUNY Purchase Film Conservatory and a 2024 Sundance Institute Trans Possibilities Fellow. They also have participated in fellowships and artist programs such as Film at Lincoln Center's Artist Academy, Sundance Ignite, Creative Culture at The Jacob Burns Film Center, and NeXt Doc. Diaz is currently in post-production for their short film Today and Tomorrow, which follows two NYC teens as their efforts to return to their after-school routine unravels unspoken feelings.

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Director Statement

Today & Tmrw came to me out of nostalgia for my childhood, my home, and the innocence of young romance. I wrote it during a moment in my life where I felt myself spinning out of place and desperately craving familiarity. The story appeared to me as I walked out of the Myrtle Ave and Wyckoff Ave train station on my way to my parents’ apartment. I looked up and found the sun coming through the big windows falling on the escalators and I imagined a young girl waiting for her friend.

My parents had moved back to Bushwick after a decade of living in Bed-Stuy. Their new landlords were forcing them to move. It was painful, we were losing our headquarters and roots to a neighborhood we knew as our home. In their new old neighborhood I found myself walking through blocks I hadn’t since the 8th grade.I wasn’t prepared for the ways they had changed—the Delis I got breakfast at were now cafes with eight dollar croissants, the laundromat of my middle school best friend was now a condo building, her front door no longer existed. I walked by our childhood church looking for this chicken spot I took my first girlfriend to and found a smoke shop instead.

Still, I found a lot of it is still here, my family is still here, I’m still here and I felt inspired by that. Life moves at such speeds that you can’t fully take everything in, without realizing my nephew is growing up in the same neighborhoods I did, he’s creating the same memories and through him I get to preserve quintessential Brooklyn experiences. Through him I know that there’s an entire generation that needs places where they can find, hear, and see themselves, media they can point to and feel that excitement in their belly when they spot their train stations and hear people that sound just like them that give language to their experiences, especially queer, trans children.