the people — THE MIRAGE DOCUMENTARY

The director, Tiffany Rhynard, was a stripper at clubs in North Carolina in the early 1990’s. The producer, Andi Avery, brings 15+ years experience as a sex worker to the project. We are proud to tell these stories and invite viewers into the complexity of women’s labor — where autonomy and constraint coexist, and survival requires navigating systems not built to hold them.

FILMMAKERS

Tiffany Rhynard creates documentary films to illuminate the lived experience and human cost of injustice. Her 2016 feature documentary Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America, received a 2018 Television Academy® Honor for its airing on LogoTV in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and received the first ever Social Justice Film Award from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Her dance films have screened at festivals nationwide and internationally including Dance on Camera at the American Dance Festival and ScreenDance Miami where she was awarded the Jury Prize for Invisible Queens (2015) and for Black Stains (2018).

DIRECTOR

Andi Avery is a multimedia artist & filmmaker currently based in NYC. Their narrative film credits include Leaving Charlieand Eighty Twenty, both based on their experiences as a queer person and sex worker, and both shot by a crew entirely comprised of women and gender expansive folks. Their most recent film, Mishpucha, was awarded the Black Family Film Prize in 2023 and is currently in post-production. Andi’s film work has been exhibited at Atlanta Film Festival, Nitehawk Cinema, and London International Film Festival, among others.