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Plays in Shorts Program: Love That Dares Not
Saturday, June 15
3:00 PM - 4:45 PM

Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg Center

555 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001

One Story at a Time: Celeste Lecesne

Directors

Eva Tenuto, Natalia Iyudin

Producers

Kashka Glowacka, TMI Project

Editor

Natalia Iyudin

Cinematographers

Devin Pickering, Chris Rahm

In a seemingly fateful chain of events, an off-Broadway solo show becomes an Academy Award-winning film that ultimately inspires The Trevor Project, the largest suicide prevention lifeline for LGBTQIA+ youth. Now, 25 years later, countless lives have been saved. Celeste Lecesne candidly shares how he escaped the confines of homophobia and found the courage to share his truth with the world, inspiring the next generation to claim their own truth and continue to change the world, one story at a time.

Co-director, One Story at a Time: Celeste Lecesne

Natalia’s short films have screened worldwide, most notably The Garden, starring Sophia Lillis. In 2019, she made her directorial TV debut for the CW and Netflix. Natalia developed multiple series, including Girly with Rashida Jones and Refinery29; directed mental health campaigns around teen suicide and opioid crises; and several projects for Toyota. In 2017, she co-created and directed We Got You, a digital series with Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter of The Roots. Natalia is also a film and TV editor, and her projects have been presented at MoMA, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the National Gallery of Arts, BAM, and the San Francisco Film Society. She graduated from the Krzysztof Kieslowski School of Film & Television in Poland.

Co-director, One Story at a Time: Celeste Lecesne

Eva is the co-founder and executive director of the TMI Project. Since 2010, Eva has brought the true storytelling organization from her living room to the United Nations, and many places in between. TMI Project stories are now being listened to worldwide on the award-winning podcast, The TMI Project Story Hour. Eva is the editor and director of multiple solo shows, one of which was awarded Best Comedic Script in the United Solo Festival. Her award-winning short documentary, Vicarious Resilience, celebrated its world premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival. Her second short documentary, Locker Room Talk, debuts in 2024. Her essays have appeared in assorted anthologies and at longreads.com.