When forced to choose between losing her best friend or destroying her family, a Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and endures heartbreak in a desperate search for sexual expression.

Pariah first premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival as a short film. It later returned to the 2011 Festival as a feature film premiering in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, where it received an Excellence in Cinematography Award. Director Dee Rees workshopped Pariah in the Sundance Institute’s Directors and Screenwriters Labs and received three separate Institute grants to support production of the film. After opening to critical acclaim, Pariah, a young Black lesbian’s coming-of-age story, quickly became part of the LGBTQ+ film canon.