Filmmaker Joey J. Haley Talks Spearheading The Los Angeles Trans & Non-Binary Film Festival And Latest Short Film ‘Spies in Corsets’

Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody can agree on the solution to eat the rich. In Joey J. Haley’s political tête-à-tête Spies in Corsetstwo secret agents argue about how to properly dismantle a system of oppression. Following three months of meticulous preparation, Marcy (Chloe Baldwin) and Odi (Jewell Karinen) are preparing to attend an 18th-century themed soirée hosted by a vastly wealthy prison owner, in hopes of preventing any further harmful developments. The only hitch in the plan is that they both have different ways of getting close enough to manipulate their target. Marcy is in favor of a splashier and more explosive takedown, while Odi would much prefer to use her feminine wiles to seduce him and obtain the information she needs. This approach sparks a heated debate about proper justice, leading to the revelation of other secret desires between the two spies.

Spies in Corsets will stream on OTV and Red Coral ahead of its debut at the NewFilmmakers Los Angeles Film Festival. Below, Deadline speaks to Haley about their inspiration behind the short

DEADLINE: What led you to make Spies in Corsets?

JOEY J. HALEY: A couple of different places. Before becoming a director and a Steadicam operator, I was a dancer and a dance academic. So, I’ve been in and out of this research practice for eight to 10 years. And two of the books that have been with me in this practice are a Queer Phenomenology by Sara Ahmed and Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman. Ahmed does a really good job of centering the relation of a person in the relation of objects with each other and the orientation with how the perception of these structures changes the way one interacts with the world. With Schulman, one of the threads is that the hierarchy that we live under, and the macrocosm, has a direct impact on our day-to-day conversations. Those ideas form the core of research that serves as the foundation of my writing.

During the time I wrote Spies in Corsetswe were in the WGA strikes, and me and my crew didn’t have that much going on. We’re like, “OK, we’re professionals. Let’s make something.” And within that, part of my artist practice is that if it’s not political, it’s privileged. So, we’re weaving in all these political themes, including class reform and communication reform, while delving into political division on a deeper level within interparty and interpersonal dynamics. The last thing that wove everything together was that, at the time, I was living in a shared bedroom. In the bedroom, there was a massive furniture structure that created a little hallway within the bedroom, leading to the bathroom that separated the rest of the bedroom from itself. And there was this double mirror action happening.

With the person I was sharing the bedroom with at the time, I came to realize that every hard and important conversation we needed to have happened within that little hallway. So, the structure of the room is quite literally pushing out those needed conversations. So, when creating Spies in Corsetswe ran into the limits of, OK, this has to be a one-room type deal, two-day shoot. We have very little to spare, just two actors and that small space they’re in, which really pushes out those hard conversations, especially when they’ve been in there for three months, working on their own.

DEADLINE: So, you have Marcy, who is not female identifying, and Odi, who is female identifying. So, between the two characters, there’s a lot going on. Odi is a bit more traditional in her approach to take down the owner of this prison-industrial complex; she’ll seduce him using her feminine attributes. And Marcy’s much more rebellious in her approach. She just wanted to blow the whole thing up. What ideas did you want to get out through this dynamic?

HALEY: I wanted to explore more about political division and political division with people you love and the people that you’re closest to. Also, it was important for me to capture the opposition between radical change and slow systemic change, as they come head-to-head when they’re about to enter the night of their mission, and they’re like, “I have to do it now.”

DEADLINE: Was there anything more complicated about writing one character versus the other?

HALEY: It wasn’t necessarily hard because I’ve had so many conversations about prison abolition with people. And the very term prison abolition invokes such a reaction that, regardless of the depth of knowledge of the person I’m speaking with, I’ve heard so many insights into various views on the matter. And I drew from those experiences to weave into their conversation. The idea that both of the characters are trying to come across with is that they fundamentally want the same thing at the end of the day. Regardless, they still have the same mission and desired outcome, but the way they both envision that is wildly different. So, that glimmer of hope that we see at the end of a potential of understanding makes way for their imaginary mission beyond the short term, that there is a way to accomplish what they want without sabotaging each other.

DEADLINE: Why add the spicy romantic tension between them?

HALEY: It’s the added layer of it all, and it’s the added context that these two characters have to deeply care about each other to be able to see past each other’s worldview or past their own worldview. Especially in the world we live in now. I think if they didn’t have a sexual/romantic tension, they wouldn’t make the effort to know more about each other’s missions or extend the energy of trying to understand and question their opposing views. In a way, it’s harder to have conversations with loved ones than complete strangers sometimes, which led me to explore the idea of these two characters navigating romantic feelings within what would otherwise be a cold professional spy relationship. It ups the stakes and cuts deeper in terms of navigating conflict.

DEADLINE: You started the Los Angeles Trans & Non-Binary Film Festival. Can you talk more about that?

HALEY: The LA Trans & Non-Binary Film Festival was a complete happy accident. And it was because when we were shooting Spiesa lot of my crew and friends were also having their directorial debuts. So, when it came to pitches, I was like, “OK, how are we going to screen this?” I was like, “Oh, we’re a community. We’re all doing the same things. Let’s just show it all together. Why not?” So, I tried to reach out to resources and try to get things together. I went to a trans elder of mine and was asking for help. She gave me the spiel about reaching out to sponsors and pitch decks to do this and that. I was like, “Whoa, this is a lot.” And she was like, “Yeah, but you’re running a trans film festival.”  And I was like, “Excuse me?” So, I rose to the occasion.

But the time the film festival came around in March, there was one of those massive trans scapegoating news articles that happened around the same time. But this event was really empowering, and I still cry about it. The turnout of the festival, because I thought it was just going to be me and my friends, especially because I didn’t even advertise it that widely, was around 200 people. I hosted it at Akbar [in LA]and we had a dance party afterwards, which is exactly in my ethos of, we are here to celebrate this work, this artwork and each other. It’s still about community at the end of the day.

DEADLINE: Your short is going to Open Television (OTV) and Red Coral. Talk a bit more about this.

HALEY: Red Coral Universe is amazing. They happen to do everything. And I ended up meeting one of the inner circle who came to the Trans Film Festival and was like, “Hey, I want to take these shorts and put them on the streaming platform.” I was like, “All right. Let’s talk.” And then OTV is more niche, and their whole mission is interdisciplinary and interconnected shorts and media, which is amazing. And I’m very excited and very honored to have this go up on platforms, both for their very different audience reaches, and also the way that they center artists within their business model versus an algorithm or anything else.

DEADLINE: What would you like people to think about after they watch your short?

HALEY: On a surface level: question everything, question authority, question conflict, question yourself, question understanding. On a deeper level, I would love for people to walk away with a heightened awareness of how they come into conflict and how they show up in personal conversations. Because awareness creates space for understanding. And for Odi and Marcy, they have to question each other. So, they negate the potential of a double agency, and they have to find understanding so they can achieve the same end goal. And I find that in my personal life, that when I become aware of my own healing journey, when I become aware of the way that I show up in a dynamic or the way that I believe something, limiting belief, good, bad, neutral, it creates that space for me to be able to respond to something or someone and not react. Especially when the literal structure, especially with technology, of what we interact with on a day-to-day basis is manufactured for us to react, rather than respond. So that’s what I would love for people to walk with.

Spies in Corsets is now streaming on OTV and Red Coral.

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]