Shorts 1: Unveiled – Night Milk

About the Filmmaker

Tiger Hornby is a 25-year-old British filmmaker living in New York. She studied American Studies at the University of Manchester and Social & Cultural Studies at NYU. She is fascinated by American subcultures.

Director’s Statement

NIGHT MILK is deeply personal to me-it feels like an articulation of years of shame and confusion. 

The film does not aim to normalize Tommy’s behavior but to make room for trauma, coping mechanisms and the deviances in female pleasure we uncommonly praise. 

Sabrina and Tommy’s interactions are not good vs. evil but hopefully more nuanced. There is no correct engagement to how one experiences sexual gratification (as long as they are consensual), but there are sexual incompatibilities. 

Even if the actions are negative, or rooted in self-hatred, they are still behaviors that are worth documenting on the screen. That’s why Tommy feels so important, the character is situated in female sexual self-discovery which ultimately is uncomfortable. It also feels so necessary to show queer women like this. There’s no one I can relate to on the screen. I want to show the awkward, painful sexual encounters of your youth: as you can with the multitude of heterosexual content.

Other Perspectives

TFF Programming Team member, Emma James, on Night Milk

Writer-director Tiger Hornby’s fearless sapphic short NIGHT MILK frankly and non-judgmentally explores a woman’s (Cricket Brown, THE UNHOLY) intense connection between trauma and kink, as her partner (Betsey Brown, ACTORS) attempts to understand and support her. The graphic, beautifully shot film manages to provoke a visceral reaction during its brief runtime, due in no small part to the pair of tremendous performances that so vividly bring to life the realistic, intriguing characters from Hornby’s script. Viewers will no doubt concur that NIGHT MILK is a thoughtful slice of queer cinema from a most promising filmmaker.