Budget Paradise: Frameline 2025 Completion Fund Spotlight

Budget Paradise
Directed by LaTajh Simmons-Weaver · USA 🇺🇸 · 14 mins

Filmed and set in Oakland, Budget Paradise follows Chester, a Black, non-binary painter as they search for space and permission to exist within their hometown. The film will have its world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival at the end of April.

When I first dreamed up Budget Paradise, I wasn’t expecting to be able to bring it to life. I just wanted to write a script that made me happy and felt aligned with my style and humor. To receive support from Frameline has been extremely validating and has reminded me that stories like mine have a place in the world. Budget Paradise is a deeply personal project, blending humor and heart to explore themes of identity, resilience, and the absurdity of survival in a world that often feels rigged against us. Frameline’s support not only affirms the importance of queer storytelling but also inspires me to continue telling odd stories. 

LaTajh Simmons-Weaver (she/they) is a screenwriter, director, and producer from Oakland, CA. Their work blends humor, imagination, and irony to explore overlooked stories within Black Queer dynamics, examining how these communities learn to cope with everyday injustices. 

In 2022, Weaver was awarded the SFFILM FilmHouse Residency. During this time, they wrote and directed the short film Companion which screened at Mill Valley, BlackStar, and IndieMemphis. That same year, Weaver was selected as Chicken & Egg/POV Inaugural grantee to develop the short film Hold Me Close alongside Aurora Brachman. Through their residency, Weaver collaborated with award-winning director, Savanah Leaf, serving as an Associate Producer of Earth Mama, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and won a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut.

Weaver is now developing their first feature No One Turned Away for Lack of Funds: A Queer Inclusive Memoir, a dark comedy challenging identity politics amongst the ever-gentrifying Bay Area. Their script is a recipient of SFFILM’s Rainin Grant for development. In addition, Weaver is wrapping production on, When the Revolution Doesn’t Come, a short documentary they produced in coalition with The Guardian. Directed by Aurora Brachman, the film explores the upbringings of the children of some of the most revolutionary members of The Black Panther Party.