Philly artist Wi-Moto Nyoka finds community through horror

A place to find one another

That commitment shapes the production company Nyoka founded, The Black Girl Lives!, presented by Dusky Projects. The showcase began as a pitch to the Philadelphia Film Society for its community screening program. Organizers hoped for 50 attendees. It drew more than 150 people.

“I’m going bigger,” Nyoka says.

On November 5, Vox Populi will present horror shorts written, directed, or produced by Black women. Doors open at 7pm, leaving time for people to browse the vendors and mingle, with film screenings starting at 7:30pm. Stephanye Watts of Be Reel Black Cinema Club hosts a filmmaker Q&A, followed by an after-party at Val’s Lesbian Bar.

“I’m looking for my tribe,” Nyoka explains. She hopes to make the showcase an annual Philadelphia gathering with a small tri-state tour: a space where emerging and established storytellers can celebrate their work, discuss craft, and have fun.

Imagining other worlds

As an AfroMexicana, Nyoka describes finding spaces where she can be fully herself, without the distraction of bias, as a challenging and heartbreaking journey. Her showcase welcomes women across the diaspora and connects their films with audiences she believes are already seeking them.

Her identity informs whom she centers, the languages she chooses, and how her characters overcome obstacles. For Nyoka, speculative fiction sparks people’s imagination to dream up different societies and futures amid violence, displacement, and erasure. Creating other worlds invites audiences to ask why life can‘t be different.

In Affordable Housing, directed by Eunice Levis and written by Nyoka, horror emerges from a real-life search for a place to live. Her friend, playwright Gethsemane Herron, told her about an apartment she visited but ultimately decided not to rent. The unsettling landlord, unstable roommate, and even an egg on the ceiling, were all part of that experience. Nyoka adapted her friend’s account with her permission, giving her story credit.

“I may have made up the monster but everything else is real,” Nyoka says.

Building opportunities in Philadelphia

Her recent activities include El Spooky, Latinas Writing Horror, and screenings of Night People and Blood Quantum, the latter with cinéSPEAK. On October 27, she began as an instructor for the program New Moons, New Suns at Scribe Video Center, inviting and coaching writers to transform fears into stories and exchange ideas.

She is also developing live performances of her podcast, Black Women Are Scary, following a campfire session with live sound design by Castro. Next spring, she plans to workshop her science-fiction play Eden with Power Street Theatre. She is adapting Teeth, a werewolf story about four women’s journey from victimhood to monsterhood, into an animated series.

Nyoka credits Philadelphia’s teachers, collaborators, and cultural organizers with supporting her development, while identifying funding and biased workplace practices as barriers for BIPOC and queer artists. She wants local creators to find community and opportunities to tell their stories. Her newsletter and Patreon extend that invitation beyond the screening room.