A fable-like tale, Splash explores the interplay between identity, fantasy, and homosexual desire in pre-adolescence within the narrow confines of black masculinity. The tape is an exploration of the filmmaker’s psycho-social and sexual development within a society that encourages the consumption of whiteness and heterosexuality. Splash reveals how the family becomes the agency through which sexual repression and gender conformity are carried out.
Thomas Allen Harris is an artist, filmmaker and scholar whose work across film, video, photography, and performance illuminates the human condition and the search for identity, family, and spirituality. His mythopoetic films include "Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People" (2014) and "Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela: A Son's Tribute to Unsung Heroes" (2005). In 2009, Harris founded Digital Diaspora Family Reunion, LLC (DDFR) a socially engaged transmedia project that incorporates community organizing, performance, virtual gathering spaces, and storytelling into unique audio-visual events in over 75 cities in North and South America and Africa. The project culminated in the critically acclaimed PBS series Family Pictures USA as well as the creation of the Family Pictures Institute for Inclusive storytelling which uses the family album as a vehicle to connect people across difference. Harris is currently in production on My Mom, The Scientist, a documentary examining the relationship between art, science and spirituality. He is a Professor in the Practice at Yale University in African American Studies and Film & Media Studies.