INFO
I’m a filmmaker, photographer, stylist, and casting director based in New York City. My transdisciplinary work is rooted in realism, exploring youth, queerness, desire, and the emotional textures of coming of age, nightlife, subcultures, and identity. While my films are mostly scripted and intentionally staged, they carry a documentary sensibility — intimate, observational, and emotionally precise. I build immersive narrative worlds that reflect the psychic charge of desire, belonging, and self-stylization. Often centering Black and queer subjects, my work offers a raw, formally considered look at the subcultural spaces and personal mythologies that shape contemporary life.
Initiated through street scouting and grounded in trust-based collaboration, my process blends casting, directing, producing, and styling into a single, self-sustaining practice. I independently produce all of my projects — often managing large teams, tight timelines, and ambitious visions with minimal budgets. My work is made from and for the underground: the niche, scene-driven, and culturally specific communities of New York City that resist easy categorization.
I’m the founder of POLO, a recurring underground party in Manhattan and Brooklyn that brings together fashion kids, ravers, and outsiders. Named after the fashion staple with double-coded meaning, POLO lives at the intersection of aspiration and anti-glamour, and serves as both creative hub and living archive for the world I document.
In 2022, The Public Works Administration Gallery presented my first solo show Trade Winds, White Heat, a multi-channel exhibition of digital and video works. In a feature in New York Magazine, I was compared to Ryan Trecartin and Richard Linklater for my ability to weave intimate, character-driven storytelling with experimental cinematic form.
My most recent film, Trial Period (now streaming on The Criterion Channel), explores cultural and erotic power imbalance within New York’s queer nightlife. As music pulses and afterparties unfold, the film examines the subtle exchanges of desire, performance, and identity among a cast of real-life nightlife personalities. Blending formal rigor with documentary rawness, Trial Period is both a celebration and critique of minoritarian space.
In 2023, I premiered Fashion Year at SYSTEMA in Marseille — a 6-channel installation on beauty, alienation, and masculinity within the fashion world. The film has since screened in New York and Berlin, and imagines a future where trans and queer identities are no longer tokenized but central to the culture.
I’m currently in post-production on my upcoming film Backseat of the Couch, funded by the New York State Council on the Arts. Shot with a large cast and crew, the project marks a continued evolution in scale, while remaining deeply intimate and community-oriented.
I’ve collaborated with Anna Bolina, Calvin Klein, Celine, DAZED, SSENSE, Tommy Hilfiger, VMAN, and more. My casting and image direction has been featured by Vogue, Document Journal, Hypebeast, and Visual Tales. I’m a trusted creative partner to musicians, artists, and stylists across New York’s underground — known for my resourcefulness, vision, and sensitivity on set.
Client & Feature List:
Calvin Klein, Celine, Dazed, Document Journal, FADER, HYPEBEAST, INTERVIEW, NYLON, OFFICE, Pitchfork, RE-EDITION, SKIMS, SP5DER, SPIN, SSENSE, Tibi, Tommy Hilfiger, Universal Music Group, Vogue Magazine, Warby Parker.
All inquiries: contact@kiernanfrancis.com