Saturn Risin9

In a poetic mix of dance, visual narrative, and documentary, Saturn Risin9 follows queer performance artist Saturn on their return home to the Bay Area. We follow their journey of perseverance centering self discovery, affirmation, healing and creative expansion poetically told through fantastical imagery. Using diary style interviews and talk-alongs intercut with high fantasy staged performance, the film portrays Saturn’s creative transformation through their dreams, trials, career and progression. The film begins and ends adjacent to one of the most toxic Superfund Sites in the city, Hunter’s Point Shipyard. The nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean after WWII which sickened populations there, were linked to the ships that came back to Hunter’s Point with radioactive debris - the toxic radiation washed into the water and soil. Saturn's journey through this space extends to their own personal struggles, paralleled with environmental and water issues that continue to this day. Saturn speaks to their own journey of transformation, healing with community, and finding space to thrive at the edges. This film highlights Saturn both as a storyteller in many different forms (word, dance, music) and as a protagonist through a character driven story of perseverance. Saturn Risin9 as a film exists as a byproduct of love, trust, and the determination to realize dreams, intended to be a never ending well of visual and lyrical affirmations.