In the environmental experiment of MORE BEAUTIFUL PERVERSIONS, a reject city teenager follows a stranger to The Woods, and ends up learning about plants, their queerness, and a more beautiful purpose.
After Aiko gets rejected from every college, they go for a long, defeated walk. They unexpectedly meet someone exciting, and follow them to The Woods, where they develop a crush on this mysterious, potentially dangerous, inspiring Deedi, who teaches them (and us viewers) to identify plants and connect to nature and their body. They fall in love with this person and their knowledge, wanting to learn everything about them, but later Aiko gets lost in The Woods, and is forced to connect to the Earth on their own. Eventually they get so lost they have to call their best friend from the city, and go home. Aiko narrates, telling the story to their cynical friend, sharing their new plant knowledge, integrating it into their life in the city. Filmed in old growth forests and cities, 16mm eco-processed by the director. Produced and co-directed with our mutual aid-focused collective, Purpose Repair Shop.
PAVLI SERENETSKY fka "Brielle Brilliant" (they/them) is an artist, environmentalist, and educator who makes films, books, and other place-focused experiences. Their feature-length films include the soon-to-be-released More Beautiful Perversions (2025) and Firstness, which was the recipient of The Grand Jury Prize at Outfest 2021, nationally distributed by Gravitas Ventures, and screened at MoMA. They are the author of The Spud (Featherproof Books) and The Curtsy Family (Thoughtcrime Press), which received The Lorien Book Prize in 2018. Both books center queer, alienated youth, inspired by Pavli's own (and now reformed) teenage nihilism. Pavli has been making films and developing artful experiments for over a decade, starting with their first apprenticeship with the historic artist-run Film-Makers Cooperative in New York, where Pavli was born and raised. In 2022, they co-founded the mutual aid collective Purpose Repair Shop. They have a BA in Philosophy from Colorado College and a MFA from The School of the Art Institute in Chicago. They also currently work as an Environmental Educator at The Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, where they guide youth and adults through educational experiences in wildlife restoration sites. Pavli prefers to spend most of their time walking, reading, and filming old trees on 16mm.
Actor - Alli Logout
Cinematographer - Bethany Michalski
Actor - zzzahara
Producer - Yiro Hu
Producer - Lauren Sharifi
