Dreams in Nightmares

7/29/2026

Writer and director Shatara Michelle Ford’s second feature film **DREAMS IN NIGHTMARES** is an engaging blend of chosen family, enduring friendship, and the search for belonging in a country that often asks too much of those living outside its traditional margins. When Los Angeles-based non-tenured professor Z (Denée Benton) and longtime college friend and New York-based business consultant Tasha (Sasha Compère) are unexpectedly laid off from their jobs, they recruit fellow college friend and poet Lauren (Dezi Bing) to help search for their mutual friend Kel (Mars Storm Rucker), who has seemingly disappeared without explanation. Bound together by years of friendship and an unwavering sense of loyalty, the three queer friends travel from Pittsburgh to Kansas City before eventually mak