“Many things sparked this film,” says Haitian-American filmmaker Stefani Saintonge. “My complicated relationship with men, my obsession with Toni Morrison, feeling creatively stifled and needing to liberate the process.” 

Fucked Like A Star, which won Best and Favorite Experimental Film at BlackStar Film Festival in 2018, puts a macro lens on the skillful work of women; braiding hair, crushing spices and threading fabric. The continuous motion of their uninterrupted activity sets a tempo that joins women from Haiti and New Orleans into one harmonious symphony of plaiting, grinding and sewing. 

Fucked Like A Star is an experimental adaptation of an extract from Toni Morrison’s 1981 novel, Tar Baby; a story that explores sexual and racial tensions associated with an individual's journey to autonomy. Saintonge’s film takes inspiration from Morrison’s passage about the work of ants, which—like the work of women—often goes unnoticed. 

“It’s a deeply personal, layered love story,” says Saintonge, who spliced her film with dizzying footage of soldier ants, the majority of which are female. “Every stage of its creation brought new meaning to this small story about grand things.” The clamorous conflagration of thoraxes and antennae seamlessly crossfade into busy fingers working on braids highlighting the harmonious operation of women’s work lies in sisterhood. “The challenge was to find a new way to look at processes I’ve seen and known my whole life,” says the director. “Because it’s the re-examination that became a revelation.”