News for Queer Women, Queer Arts & Entertainment

‘Pure’ Is Bringing Black Queer Cotillion Culture To The Big Screen, Starring Imani Lewis and Laya Deleon Hayes 

April 15, 2026

Starring Imani Lewis and Laya Deleon Hayes, PURE, a new black queer coming-of-age film set in cotillion culture, is officially underway.

Featured Image: Imani Lewis (L) and Laya DeLeon Hayes (R); Photos by: Arturo Holmes/Getty Images and Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

There are coming-of-age stories, and then there coming-of-age stories that actually feel like they understand what it means to grow into yourself without sanding down the complicated parts. Pure looks like it’s aiming for the latter—and it’s about damn time.

A new feature adaption of the short film Pure is officially in the works, with actress and Grammy-winning songwriter Imani Lewis and budding actress Laya DeLeon Hayes, set to star in the Black queer coming-of-age story. The film is helmed by Natalie Jasmine Harris, an NYU alum and award-winning director whose work consistently centers Balck queer life with care, texture and joy.

If Harris’ name sounds familiar, it should. Her short film Grace premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and explored the tension between religion and queer desire through the story of a teenage girl in the 1950s South.

Now, with Pure, she’s bringing that same emotional precision into a very different, but equally loaded, setting: Black cotillion culture.

Originally released as a short film (and yes, you can stream it on platforms like HBO Max, Hulu and Prime), Pure is being expanded into a full-length feature. The story follows Celeste (Lewis), a gifted 17-year-old slam poet who unexpectedly moves from the Bay Area to the elite Black suburbs of Maryland. She navigates her identity when unexpected new love, Joy (Hayes), enters her life while also preparing for her cotillion—a traditional rite of passage that is, of course, rooted in heteronormativity.

And that tension is exactly the point.

“Pure came to be because growing up, I always saw people doing the cotillion tradition…it was all so beautiful—but also very heteronormative,” Harris shared in an interview with Teen Vogue. She describes being fascinated by the spectacle of it all while also feeling out place within it, a contradiction that eventually became the film’s foundation.

So yes, this is a coming-out story—but with a twist. Or, more accurately, two of them. Cotillion itself is often framed as kind of societal “coming-out,” which makes Celeste’s journey into her queer identity all the more layered. Its debutante meets self-discovery, etiquette lessons colliding with the very real question of who gets to belong in these traditions.

And casting matters here. A lot.

“I’m beyond grateful to have these brilliantly talented leading ladies, Imani Lewis and Laya DeLeon Hayes, on board to help bring Pure to life. Thank you for trusting the vision,” Harris wrote in an instagram post.

Lewis, best known for her role in the lesbian vampire series, First Kill (RIP to a camp classic gone too soon), returns to queer storytelling once again. Hayes—who starred in The Equalizer and Doc McStuffins—on the other hand is stepping into a role that marks a shift from her Disney Channel roots into something far more complex. Together they’re leading a story that isn’t just about representation, but about specificity. Black, queer, suburban, traditional, modern—all of it at once.

As we know, Hollywood loves a coming-of-age moment, but it rarely ventures into spaces such as this one. Black cotillion culture, particularly in Suburban settings like Maryland, has largely gone unexplored on screen. And when you add queerness into that mix, the result isn’t just “diverse storytelling”—it’s storytelling that actually reflects the contradictions people live in.

The project is co-written with producer-writer Yoko Kohmoto and executive produced by independent filmmakers, Britney Ngaw and Avril Speaks. And if early buzz is any indication, this feature-length version is poised to do what the best queer films do: make space for stories that have always existed, just not always been seen.

And if you’re in New York City, you might not have to wait long to get a glimpse. A special preview event for Pure is set for April 19, offering audiences a sneak peak into the film’s world—with more cities expected to follow.

Now for the even more fun part, let’s see what fans are saying about the film’s future release.

You might also like...