It’s not easy to categorize or classify Jasmine Lynea and her work, but she’s thinking about it.
Lynea (she/they) is a Black, queer filmmaker, writing and directing projects from branded content to mini-docs to award-winning short films. They’re a multidisciplinary artist, a storyteller, an educator; they even tried DJing. Their work is colorful, somehow both modern and retro, while still projecting the future, and the theme of transforming reality runs throughout.
“I feel like I’m at a time where I’m exploring a lot of different things. So, yes, my base, I would say, is being a filmmaker. And now I’m exploring woodworking to make the machine. And then I’m also taking a class on portrait sketching. And then I’m practicing collage, and eventually I’ll be preparing for another film,” Lynea says. “So with that, I mean, I don’t know how to narrow that down. It’s already a habit to call myself a filmmaker. But I know that I’m also all these other things; I’m kind of figuring out how to identify with it.”
This “machine” Lynea speaks of is part of an immersive exhibit based on the short film they wrote and directed, The Love Machine, which won the audience prize at the United We Heal Film Festival in June. The installation, due to open in October, is part of her arts and technology residency at NextFab, which began in January.
In the film, a young man invites his sister to try out his new invention: a device reminiscent of a time machine and a VR game that scans for and reconstructs traumatic memories into a happy, healthy alternative reality for the user to experience. Though it’s less than 10 minutes long, you immediately know these characters. You are so heavily invested in their story that (no spoilers!) it’s easy to miss the clever framing device that forces the viewer to question the reality of these individuals, their trauma, and the love machine itself. Watch it more than once; trust me.
The installation isn’t meant to simply recreate the machine from the film, nor do they want it to focus on childhood trauma. “We’re talking about your first community, which is family. So what does that look like in a house? I’m reimagining the machine within the body of a home. And the love machine is the home that we live in, and the people involved in that community within that space.”
It’s a collage made of home, family, community, and relationships that Lynea is designing, painting, and building. “If I’m collecting all these different things, maybe I’m a collage artist, you know? In the most literal sense. Even with my films, it feels like things I’m putting together … this found material that I’m doing or this material that I’m actually seeking out, it’s collage work in a sense. So I kind of think of myself that way, but I’m sticking to filmmaker and visual artist just for now. I can find myself changing and identifying as something else, you know?”
There and back again: from film to teaching to film
Raised in Teanek, NJ, Lynea came to Philadelphia to attend Temple University, earning a BA in film in 2015 before relocating to New York City to work as a video editor and producer for the New York Film Academy. During their time there, they also managed teaching assistants for the summer camp program, which drew kids from all over the world.
A film analysis class in high school first drew Lynea to filmmaking. “That made me love film because you’re analyzing a film in a different way. Why did they choose this shot? What does the music mean? She’s wearing white. So what does that mean? A film is just not what you see, but also everything else that comes that’s intentionally in there.” Seeing the kids in the summer camp exploring their creativity made her want to recapture that experience. “I wanted to inspire kids to explore film in this very artistic, creative, just show your imagination kind of way.”
“The films and the works that I create are just ways of really emphasizing on the what if.” — Jasmine Lynea
Lynea returned to Philly in 2018 to begin teaching classes in film and photography at Samuel Fels High School in the Pennsport neighborhood of South Philly. She saw over 80 kids a day, and not all of her students came to class out of a passion for creativity. But those who did send her messages to this day, keeping her up-to-date on their accomplishments.
“I had incredible students who loved photography, who loved writing about screen stories for their films, who loved holding the camera, so it gave me the opportunity to kind of relive this thing where it gave me the love and appreciation I had for film and giving it back to those students.”
Lynea taught through the pandemic, which involved students using their cellphones to take photos and make films that were, in many respects, ingeniously creative, and working virtually on screenplays. But the pandemic was not the reason Lynea left teaching.
“Teachers need to get paid more,” they say flatly. “you’re not just a teacher. You’re their mentor. You’re a therapist. Sometimes you get close enough to them that really tell you personal stuff, and that’s a lot of weight.” It takes a lot to create and update a lesson plan, instruct students in the practices and creative process of photography and filmmaking, and grade them on their work. Teachers take their work home with them. And though students at Samuel Fels enjoy a well-equipped gym, a pool, and the opportunity to take classes like Lynea’s, so many of her students lacked a grounding in math and English. Students for whom English is a second language or who have learning disabilities presented other challenges. Then came the pandemic, followed by the return to in-person learning afterward.
“I’ll say it again. Teachers need to get paid more.”
Keeping up with advances and techniques in the industry to instruct her students kept her informed, but without the time and availability to practice those skills, Lynea was hitting a creative slump. “Teaching is something that held me accountable to that in terms of, I need to learn all this new stuff in order to teach you guys,” they explain. “But … I’m not learning to evolve my creativity. What does my art look like?”
At this point, Lynea was 28 years old and felt a big shift coming — “my solar return,” they call it. The School District, meanwhile, was offering payouts for teachers who wanted to move on. In 2022, they were accepted into the Filmmaker Lab at BlackStar, which meant a $50,000 budget to create a short film, as well as workshops and other fellowship resources. They left teaching after the first group of students they had taught as freshmen graduated.
“We got support all around filmmaking. This is my first time having a full crew, first time doing a sci-fi film, which for indie film, or a short film. This is big to have,” they say of the experience in the BlackStar fellowship. “It’s more money in terms of VFX and graphics and stuff. It was my first time having this, and I felt myself getting very scared that I was not capable of doing it, even though I teach this, I went to school for it. There was something different about having close to everything that I needed to make this film.”
The Love Machine premiered at BlackStar Film Festival later that summer.
What’s next?
In between directing, writing, and making art, they occasionally teach screenwriting and directing, sharing their experience and passion with emerging filmmakers. They’ve done a collage workshop in collaboration with Yannick Lowry as part of her Nextfab residency. Her next film, Della Can Fly!, premieres at the 2025 BlackStar Film Festival July 31.
Produced with the aid of a grant from the Independence Public Media Foundation, Della Can Fly! is a Black folktale set in the early 2000s. It follows an elderly man who, with his 10-year-old great-niece, seeks proof that his long-lost sister had literally flown away. “It’s a little bit of sci-fi, but a lot of spirit. That film’s inspired by my grandmother’s stories that she told me growing up, and my obsession with family photos. I grew up wanting to know more,” Lynea says. “I think the films and the works that I create are just ways of really emphasizing on the what if, you know?”
Lynea imagines mobilizing her NextLab exhibit after it’s finished, taking it to the public in parks and urban gardens, and back to her neighborhood, hopefully accompanied by a display to screen The Love Machine alongside it. “It’s almost a gift in a way, but also just a reflection of what I see in my community and what I would like to have in my community in terms of togetherness and actually feeling like we know each other because having a community is a stabilizing force. It’s really powerful.”
Della Can Fly! Premieres July 31 at BlackStar Film Festival’s Antecessor Shorts in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater at 300 S Broad Street. Individual tickets for the event are $19.95 and can be purchased here.
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