Aliya Brooks Explores Identity And Sexuality In Discovering Brooklynn
Aliya Brooks picked up a pen and started her writing journey in her third year of nursing school. She had already produced her first play at twelve years old, which piqued her interest, but poetry became her muse when graduating from nursing school did not prove to be enough for Brooks. She felt the need to write and explore impactful Black characters. Her goal was to normalize the Black experience in America. With that, Brooks wrote, directed, and produced two short films: "She Knows" and "InQueeries," which garnered mentioned in the New York Times. Her first films even made their run around the film festival circuit. She was invited to join a Chicago playwright panel, to select the best playwright who pushed forth 'Sapphic centric' narratives, and assisted Emmy Nominated director Dee Rees on an Oscars commercial that highlighted women in film. She is currently working on a feature film entitled "Discovering Brooklynn," which tackles taboo subjects and pushes forth more relatable underrepresented characters.
Aliya Brooks is originally from Paterson, New Jersey, and lives between LA and Atlanta. The split living situation is due to her career as a filmmaker and her free time spent as a traveling nurse. Becoming a traveling nurse affords her the ability to be a filmmaker full time and sustain herself in Los Angeles. The filmmaker even weaves in aspects of her time spent in the healthcare industry into her films.
There is a connection between film and nursing if you think about it," Brooks explained. "Depending on the projects that you've seen of mine, or things that I'm working on, a lot of the time, the projects that I work on have some medical storyline. So, I add to my films things that I've learned on the job or in school. I grew up a first-generation Jamaican, and a lot of the time, we were taught to have a stable career and that all the other things are just for fun."
"I was always a writer," Brooks continued. It was just something that I did for fun. When I was actually in the process of graduating from college with my nursing degree, I was writing my first feature film, and I was like, 'Oh, this is just for fun.' Like, who writes a feature film? Like, who does that? After I wrote it, I was like, 'Okay, I'm good now. I can focus on being a nurse,' but it wasn't enough. It started off as more of a path of just something of a hobby, and now it's blown up to where it is right now."
Ultimately, Brooks’ connections in Los Angeles and Atlanta led her to pursue filming her current project. Working with Dee Rees, who is a screenwriter and director known for her feature films “Pariah,” “Bessie,” “Mudbound,” and “The Last Thing He Wanted,” and working as a production assistant (or PA) helped Brooks direct her path towards Hollywood.
"I was able to work as Dee Rees's director's assistant on a Walmart commercial that was showcased at the Oscars,” Brooks said. “Through that, I was able to work on a lot of Hollywood sets and make my way through the PA route. I made a lot of connections in LA. However, prior to that, when I was living in Atlanta, I made a lot of connections out there, and, for the most part, I filmed most of my films in Atlanta. "Discovering Brooklynn," the short film, was the first picture I filmed in Los Angeles, and I will film the feature in Georgia in 2022.”
The semi-autobiographical story is about a woman who thinks she has it all figured out but whose seemingly perfect life crumbles before her eyes. Brooklynn is a first-generation Jamaican who always had issues expressing and accepting her sexuality due to her family being extremely homophobic and her upbringing in the south's Bible belt in Georgia. She is a closeted queer person who hooked up with another woman six years prior, and the two of them run into each other at a party.
"I wrote it was because I wanted a piece that focuses on the difficulty of sexuality, mainly in women, and the complexities of that and how sexuality can truly be on the spectrum," Brooks explained. "A lot of times, we judge people by the way they look and assume that they are a certain way because they look a certain way. So it's more a look on perceptions, and essentially about not judging a book by its cover."
Aliya Brooks drew inspiration from her own life as a first-generation Jamaican who grew up in a strict Christian home. As a result, identity and coming to terms with her own sexuality were themes she had to tackle firsthand.
"A lot of people don't know that Jamaica was once known as the most homophobic place in the world," said Brooks. "I believe that's due to the music. They had a lot of music that was anti-gay, or murder music, as it's been coined. And its music that promotes the murder and torture of people in the LGBTQIA+ community. So, growing up listening to that, and that being a part of my culture, and not knowing what my sexuality was but knowing that I was different from everyone forbade me essentially to be like that. And then, on top of that, also growing up in a strict Christian household. My grandfather was the pastor of our church. We went to church almost every week. I went to Catholic school, and It was very confining in many ways. So, I want it to resonate."
"I want Discovering Brooklynn to resonate with people that have felt like they weren't able to express themselves not only with sexuality but just with things that they enjoy doing," Brooks continued. "And people that are around them are telling them that that's not cool, or you shouldn't be doing that or because of the way that you look. That's not what you should be doing. Like how many say, 'Oh, Black people don't swim, or Black people don't ski.' That kind of stuff is what Discovering Brooklynn is to me."
The film is unique in telling Brooks' perspective on growing up Jamaican and as a queer person of color living in a Christian home. It is also a vehicle to address the societal issues of homophobia, not just in Jamaica but in other parts of the world. There are currently 71 countries out of 195 countries around the world where homosexuality is illegal. There are some countries where it's punishable by death.
"Although contrary to popular belief, I'm in love with my culture," said Brooks. "I love it. I, however, want to be able to walk on a Jamaican beach with someone that I'm in love with and not feel eyes burning the side of my face. I don't want to face the repercussions of my sexuality and a culture that I love so much. So, I want to let say that first. Again, I love my culture, and a lot of people have questioned my love of my culture. But yeah, it's very nuanced. I think many things date back to slavery, Christianity, and a lot of beliefs in that sense. Jamaica, for the most part, is a Black nation, and slavery was rampant. It was very cruel in Jamaica, and because of that, without going into the whole history, there are many fears associated with homosexuality. And with that, a lot of reggae artists, dancehall artists made music that, again, promotes the murder and torture of gay people, our people in the LGBTQIA+ community. They're not making the music anymore."
"I do want to add that even though it's a predominantly Black nation, there are a lot of other races and creeds and nationalities that are Jamaican as well," Brooks continued. "As Issa Rae said, we are not a monolith. We are everything and anything. I've been in conversation with a person at a record company that represents a lot of Jamaican artists, and they have pulled a lot of those songs off of their catalogs which, again, is a great thing. However, that doesn't change the mindset of the people. You can't just throw something away and say it never happened. It did, and with us talking about it, we can finally make the situation heal as opposed to just putting a Band-Aid over a leaking pipe. It's not going to change anything. It's just, oh that music is not available anymore, but you can still look it up, and you can still download it."
"There are so many people that are affected by this that don't go and see their family members. I know people to this day that live their queer lifestyle in their city, and then they go back home, and they're straight. So, it's not something that's so foreign. So often, people are like, oh, Ellen came out as gay in the 90s on her show, and she had a talk show. There are so many people that are out there that are out. But that doesn't mean that homophobia still doesn't exist. We had a black president, doesn't mean that racism still doesn't exist."
Discovering Brooklynn is currently in pre-production, and Brooks is working on funding and gearing her way to the end of 2022. The filmmaker is hoping for the second quarter of 2022 to get all the logistics wrapped up and underway. The film will be screening at Junior High in LA as a collaborative event hosted by Hot Donna's Clubhouse, which will feature several queer artists and organizations throughout greater LA on Saturday, September 18th at 1:00 pm. Audiences can follow Brooks on the film's Instagram account at discoveringbrooklynn for more updates on the feature and can donate to help get the film completed by visiting the film's fiscal sponsorship page through Film Independent at the following link here.