Award-Winning Short Film Don't Be Desperate, Starring D. Woods, Streams Free On YouTube For A Limited Time Before Its Streaming Debut
Yhá Mourhia Wright announces that the award-winning comedic short film Don’t Be Desperate, starring D. Woods, is streaming free on YouTube for a limited time before its streaming debut. The film is now available on OG Network, Kweli TV, multiple Roku FAST channels, and iWoman TV. The free YouTube window is open now and will close soon. Free. Limited. Yours.
Don’t Be Desperate is a quirky but honest exploration into the colorful imagination of Aliyah Stanbeck, a woman in her late 30s who is a hopeless romantic with her head in the clouds but grounded by the fears of her “ticking clock.” The official logline: an imaginative and anxious singer receives life-changing news on the eve of her first performance in years, forcing her to confront her deepest desires and her worst fears.
Since its 2022 premiere, Don’t Be Desperate has built a real track record. It was an Official Selection at the Hip Hop Film Festival in 2022 and the Newark International Film Festival in 2022, won the Independent Spirit Award at the 2023 Detroit Black Film Festival, and earned an Outstanding Music nomination at the 2023 Micheaux Film Festival, one of the most respected stages in Black independent film. It also aired nationally on Aspire TV. Music sits at the center of the story, anchored by the original song “Don’t Leave Me,” written by Wright, and a score by Nolan Mersier.
“This film took its time getting here, and I used to see that as the thing that held it back. But Don’t Be Desperate is about trusting the timing of your life, about not measuring yourself by how fast everything is supposed to happen. So to have it reach the most people it ever has, right now, in a moment that mirrors exactly what the story is saying, feels surreal. The film practiced what it preached. It waited for its moment, and this is it.” - Yhá Mourhia Wright, Writer and Director, Don’t Be Desperate
The film makes its streaming debut on OG Network, the free ad-supported channel celebrating urban culture and Black cinema, founded by media entrepreneur Courtney “Big Court” Richardson II and co-founded by hip-hop and television icon Ice T. It also streams on Kweli TV, the Black-owned platform founded by DeShuna Spencer that curates independent film and storytelling from across the global Black diaspora. Kweli means truth in Swahili. Additional distribution includes multiple Roku FAST channels and iWoman TV, with more platforms to be announced.
“I challenged myself to be honest about my personal anxieties as I reach my mid-30’s. Triumphant Black women have surrounded me, but conversations centering on fertility were at best reduced to being a ‘White woman’s problem’ under the assumption that our people, our women, could procreate at the drop of a dime. What happens when the reality that this might not be the truth is faced? How does the impact of deferred dreams, delayed love, and desires for Motherhood challenge us?”
Yhá Mourhia Wright, Writer and Director, Don’t Be Desperate
Where to Watch
YouTube (free, limited time): Watch Here
OG Network
Kweli TV
…and more to come!
Follow the film at @dbd_film, the production company at @yhawrightproductions, and the filmmaker at @mswrightontime on Instagram.