Alike (Adepero Oduye) is a teenager, who one could say has three strikes against her by being 1) a female, 2) Black and 3) a lesbian. Shot in New York City, Pariah explores what it means to juggle multiple identities and the toll that can take. Alike juggles these identities in order to gain acceptance from her family and friends but, at some point, this becomes too much. As Alike finds, many of the gender constructs that society imposes apply not only to relationships involving men and women, but also same gender relationships.

Pariah has screened at over 40 locations, including the Sundance Film Festival and the Pan African Film Festival. Currently, the film is a semi-finalist in the Netflix Find Your Voice Film Contest. To cast your vote for Pariah, click here.

Synopsis (Courtesy of Pariah website) 

Pariah is a coming-of-age drama about a lesbian teenager who unsuccessfully juggles multiple identities to avoid rejection from her friends and family.

Set against the kinetic and incongruous social landscape of middle class New York City, Alike vacillates between being a proud and sexually independent woman amongst her openly gay friends and being the feminine, obedient girl that her strict Christian upbringing dictates she be.

Torn by mounting pressure from home, school, and within, the line between her dual personas wears thin with explosive consequences.

ADEPERO ODUYE  “Alike”

Adepero hails from Brooklyn, NY by way of Nigeria.  A graduate of Cornell University, she studied acting at Black Nexxus with Susan Batson, at HB Studios with Austin Pendleton, and with Bob Krakower, and Karen Kohlhaas. Film credits include:  Pariah, On The Outs and Half Nelson. Theater credits include: Count Down. TV credits include: NBC’s Law & Order, and Law & Order Criminal Intent.  She is a one-time Manhattan Monologue Slam Champion.  She also directed, produced and performed in the variety show, On The Spot (NYC).

DEE REES
WRITER/DIRECTOR

Award-winning writer/director DEE REES is a recent alumna of New York University’s graduate film program and a 2007 Sundance Screenwriting Lab Fellow. She has written and directed several short films, including PARIAH, which has screened at over 40+ festivals including the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and garnered several accolades including the Audience Award at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival.

Most recently, Dee continued development on the feature project PARIAH at the 2008 Sundance Screenwriting & Director’s Labs and was named as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” for 2008. Dee was also selected as a 2008 Tribeca Institute/ Renew Media Arts Fellow (Rockefeller Foundation) for her work, and is currently wrapping post-production on a feature documentary on Liberia titled EVENTUAL SALVATION, which was honored with a grant from the 2007 Sundance Documentary Fund in addition to winning the 2007 Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Award.

Dee worked as a script supervision intern on Spike Lee’s films “When The Levees Broke” and “Inside Man” and also worked as a development intern with producer Barbara De Fina. Dee earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) from Florida A&M University.

NEKISA COOPER
PRODUCER

Nekisa Cooper, an accomplished marketer and emerging producing talent has produced short films, including the award-winning short PARIAH, which has had over 40 screenings, including at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won over 25 film festival awards. Most recently, Nekisa was selected as one the producers to represent IFP at the 2009 Rotterdam Producing Lab and she was also named a member of the Film Independent Project Involve Class of 2009. In July 2008, she was also selected to participate in the inaugural and highly competitive Sundance Institute Creative Producing Initiative.

In 2005, she produced the short, ORANGE BOW, which screened at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and aired on BET-Jazz. Nekisa is also partnered with award-winning writer/director, Dee Rees, in producing the Sundance Documentary Fund-supported feature EVENTUAL SALVATION, which she represented at the 2007 Sundance Institute’s Producer’s Conference.

Nekisa earned a BA in Government with a minor in Japanese studies from The College of William & Mary and an MBA in Marketing from Clark Atlanta University.