Justice Jamal Jones explores transformation in the Caribbean, with the Siren as the embodiment of Black queerness and Vodou symbolism

In short film Notes on a Siren, director Justice Jamal Jones transforms the myth of the Siren and the Sailor through the lens of Black queerness and transness – set against the backdrop of Palm Heights in the Cayman Islands. Positioned from a place of sanctuary, within a landscape inextricably linked to slavery, the experimental film essay uses the archetypal Siren to explore how Black and African spiritualities have been demonized and criminalized in the Caribbean, and its questionable portrayal in cinematic history.

“Notes on a Siren was born out of my fascination with the relationship of the Siren and the Sailor. It mirrored my own ideals around the director and subject. Mermaids and sirens speak to my trans femme non-binary identity, being many things at once, in the net of the male gaze.”

Jones represents the Siren as a vessel for possession – existing between the border of the ordinary and the magical, the land and the ocean. Making distinct connections between Black liberation, trans identity, possession, and Vodou, as tools of transformation, transmutation, and transcendence, the film becomes a decolonial medium, considering the policing of Black bodies through a mythical symbol freed from societal confines.

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