Born into the Divine is a documentary exploring the divinity of queer people and the essential contributions of women and queer practitioners in preserving African and diasporic spiritual traditions. Connecting communities in California, Cuba, Nigeria, and Brazil, the film asks how ancestral traditions can help us understand gender, spiritual authority, and belonging—and what we reclaim when we recognize ourselves within the sacred.

The project grows from research our founder, Dee Siu Mejia, Iyalorisha Ogundiran, began in 2013. Her exploration of women’s and queer people’s roles in Lucumí led her to examine connections with Candomblé and the ways these traditions have been sustained across generations. The documentary will explore their work in maintaining religious houses, transmitting songs and ceremonies, preserving oral histories, mentoring practitioners, and caring for communities. It will also examine how colonial and patriarchal ideologies have obscured these contributions and narrowed understandings of gender and spiritual leadership.

In November 2025, this research entered a new chapter when Dee was bestowed the title Iya Eere Alaragbo Oodua in Ibadan, Nigeria, and Adonis Emory Cole was bestowed the title Oba Alaragbo Oodua. Dee’s recognition as an openly trans woman and Adonis an openly gay man, holding a traditional title opened the door to developing the research into a documentary, bringing its questions of identity, recognition, and sacred responsibility into a deeply personal focus.

Through historical research, personal testimony, and conversations with spiritual leaders, Born into the Divine will explore how women and queer people continue to hold positions of spiritual and community leadership today. The film will engage theological perspectives within Orisha traditions, including interpretations of Orishas whose attributes and manifestations transcend fixed male and female categories or resonate with nonbinary understandings of gender. Honoring differences among lineages and communities, it will ask how these perspectives illuminate the sacredness of queer lives.

At its heart, Born into the Divine is about reclaiming memory and affirming our place within ancestral traditions. By honoring the women and queer people who have helped these traditions survive and flourish, the film seeks to preserve their wisdom, challenge exclusion, and create space for future generations to recognize their own dignity and divinity.