WHY THIS QUESTION STAYED WITH ME
I’VE BEEN ASKED “WHAT ARE YOU? MY ENTIRE LIFE
As a biracial person, it’s a question I’ve heard for as long as I can remember.
Most of the time, people weren’t asking about my personality, my interests, or the person I was becoming. They wanted an answer that made me easier to categorize.
For a long time, I didn’t think much about it. But as I got older, I started to realize that the question was bigger than my own experience. It made me wonder how many people feel pressured to explain themselves through categories that never fully contain them.
That idea eventually became What Are You?
The film follows Randall Jennings, a biracial college student who attends a backyard game night hoping to fit in. As harmless party games become increasingly personal, he is forced to confront the boxes everyone around him keeps trying to place him in.
What started as a question I had been asked my whole life became a story about identity, belonging, and the pressure to define yourself for other people.
THE WORLD OF WHAT ARE YOU?
WHEN FITTING IN MEANS PICKING A SIDE
By junior year, most college students have already found their people, but Randall Jennings is still searching for where he belongs. After transferring to Temple University, he enters a campus where friendships have already formed and social circles already have history. Reserved and observant by nature, Randall has spent his first few months learning the people around him rather than letting them learn too much about him. That begins to change when Riah Wilson, a classmate he's recently connected with, invites him to a backyard game night with the group of friends she's known since freshman year. For Randall, the invitation is an opportunity to finally move beyond being the new guy and become part of something already established.
MEET THE CHARACTERS
THE PEOPLE AT THE CENTER
Randall Jennings has always been more comfortable observing a room than becoming the center of one. Reserved, thoughtful, and careful about what he reveals, he has learned to read the people around him before deciding how much of himself to show. After transferring to Temple University during his junior year, that instinct becomes even stronger as he tries to find his place within a campus where friendships and social circles already feel established.
Riah Wilson is naturally curious about the people around her. Warm, socially confident, and emotionally open, she is the kind of person who makes conversation easily and genuinely wants others to feel included. Having built a close circle of friends since freshman year, Riah is comfortable within the group and becomes Randall’s entry point into a space where everyone else already knows one another. Her invitation to the backyard game night comes from a genuine desire to bring Randall into that circle. As the night unfolds, however, Riah’s curiosity begins to push beyond what Randall is comfortable sharing.
Tayvon Reynolds moves through the world with a confidence Randall doesn’t share. Outgoing, playful, and comfortable within the group, he rarely hesitates to say what he thinks. He has known Riah and the others since freshman year, giving him the ease of someone who understands exactly where he stands within the group and rarely has reason to question it. As the games become more personal, Tayvon begins to challenge Randall’s answers—not out of hostility, but because they don’t fit the way he understands identity. To Tayvon, certain distinctions feel obvious. People belong somewhere, and when Randall’s answers complicate those boundaries, Tayvon pushes him to choose.
THE backyard
A PLACE THAT ALREADY FEELS LIKE HOME — JUST NOT TO RANDALL
Riah’ s backyard is a familiar gathering place for the group of friends she’s known since freshman year. Comfortable and lived-in, it’s the kind of space where games, conversations, food, and music can all exist together. For everyone else, the backyard is familiar territory. For Randall, it’s a space he’s still trying to find his place within.
Target audience
WHO WILL LOVE WHAT ARE YOU?
Biracial & Multiracial Audiences: At its core, What Are You? speaks directly to people who have been asked to explain where they belong, choose between parts of themselves, or fit into categories that never felt complete. Through Randall’s experience, the film reflects the quiet pressure of being seen as something that needs to be clarified, defined, or simplified for other people to understand.
WHY I’M MAKING THIS FILM
I’m making What Are You? because I know what it feels like to be asked to define yourself using one word. When it comes to race and identity, people often expect a simple answer, even when the truth is more complicated. Those questions can seem harmless from the outside, but when you’re the person being asked to reduce yourself to a single category, they can carry more weight than people realize. With Randall’s story, I wanted to explore that pressure without turning it into a dramatic confrontation. A game night, a question, a joke, a reaction—none of these things have to feel malicious on their own. But together, they can make someone feel like they are being reduced to a category instead of understood as a person. Through Randall, I want to explore the space between belonging and self-definition. My hope is that biracial and multiracial audiences recognize something truthful in his experience, while others come away thinking more carefully about the ways we ask people to explain themselves. Ultimately, I want the film to leave audiences with the idea that you do not have to simplify who you are just to make yourself easier for someone else to understand.
help us bring what are you? to life
What Are You? is now moving through pre-production, and I'm raising $5,000 to help support the film through production, post-production, and release.
For the full campaign, funding breakdown, production plan, and ways to support the film, visit the official GoFundMe page.
