Mermaid - Director Fia Perera

Ten-year-old Cassius Daniels (Cassie Devyn McDowell) knows exactly who she is—a mermaid princess. But trapped in a body her father refuses to understand, bullied at school, and battling gender dysphoria, life feels like one long chokehold. Desperate and unraveling, Cass fills a backpack with rocks and walks into the lake. Enter Pepper (Pepper Arturo Luíz Soria) —a sharp-tongued, emotionally wrecked drag queen just having left a late-night show. Hungover and haunted by her own demons, Pepper spots Cass at the lake before it’s too late. Their first encounter is awkward, fiery, and unforgettable. Cass is resistant. Pepper’s a mess. But when Cass sneaks into Club Bizou, drawn by a poster of Pepper in full regalia, a spark is lit!

About the filmmaker Fia Perera is an award-winning writer and director whose work examines identity, belonging, and transformation through emotionally resonant storytelling. With over 15 Off-Broadway productions and multiple television credits including The Invitation for Discovery and the award-winning pilots Do the Voice, Baby Steps, and BAD ALICE, Perera has established herself as a distinctive voice in contemporary cinema and theater. Her feature documentary Paul & Trisha: The Art of Fluidity, now streaming on Apple and Amazon, garnered critical acclaim for its intimate portrait of two 77-year-old British artists living in one gender-fluid body and was recognized for its nuanced exploration of identity across generations. Her latest film MERMAID provides both representation and emotional resonance for diverse audiences, while her next feature SWIMMING NAKED—which dives into the hilarious and complex 30-year mother-daughter relationship—is currently in development. Perera’s path to the director’s chair was anything but conventional. After training as an actor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ Circle in the Square program—where she met Mary Birdsong, who plays Clarita in MERMAID—she faced the industry’s narrow definitions of what a character actress should be