BFI Flare 2025 – Interview With Director Anaiis Cisco (Drip Like Coffee)

While watching Drip Like Coffee, there was a real instinct for place when it came to character but also the New York urban jungle which holds as home to the emotional entanglements that play out across the course of the film as an instinctual romance rises in two Brooklyn baristas, Kali and Mel, leading them to confront their current circumstances in their already established relationships.

The author behind all this is the film’s writer/director Anaiis Cisco and I was pleasured to have the chance to sit down with her (with the help of your favourite video chat client, Zoom) and talk about her debut feature film, the intentions behind it from its expansion from short to feature, the line between fact and fiction and what she wishes to communicate to the world as a black, queer woman. It is my honour to bring you her words.

Ellis: One thing I noticed about this story is that it has this specific feeling of being black in New York. 
And I’m not from New York. I don’t understand anything about that, but there’s the first place where we opened this film. It’s with Kali’s hair being braided and I think it just grounds this film in such an interesting way because these things (the story in Drip Like Coffee) could be happening anywhere but it’s here. 
So how does it feel having a story which is so specific find its way all the way to BFI Flare in the UK?

Anaiis: Yeah, thank you for that question and for seeing exactly what the film is meant to be, like capturing that essence and that opening moment where we are in a black salon and things are kind of being pushed on to Kali, but she is also like: “I want my hair, this way”. 
But yeah, I really wanted to kind of capture black women’s experiences specifically to Brooklyn, and screening it at home in Brooklyn was like: “this is why we make movies!”.

Because the audience understands all of the subtle nuances that were placed there just for them. There’s different contexts in which we screened the work and it’s celebrated, but there’s something very special about capturing exactly what you highlighted, that being black in Brooklyn in a moment of gentrification and a moment of just capitalism taking over the entire city and sometimes, you know, the culture of Brooklyn gets stripped away or it gets kind of simplified into these moments where it’s like, “oh, black folks are being pushed out”. But there are a lot of black folks that still own their homes, that are running businesses like a black-owned cafe, like a black-owned hair salon, that does more than just provide a product for people, the cafe for Kali and Mel becomes their sanctuary, becomes that space where they are they’re allowed to evolve and allowed to be a mess and experiment with coffee drinks or experiment with how they identify and I just kind of wanted to illustrate our visualise exactly what I know Brooklyn to be and kind of maintaining its integrity and the charisma of such a special place like Brooklyn.

Ellis: That hit a lot for me because, just growing up around East London and it’s very different right now. 
I think it’s very gentrified- I think it’s it’s kind of similar to Brooklyn! But I was around there last week after seeing the movie, I just went round the corner and there’s still the barbers I went to when I was a kid and like there was still like the Nigerian place where I went to when I was a kid. 
I was just like: “oh, like this stuff still exists!” and then I walk down the road and there’s some guy in Rick Owens. Like it’s kind of weird, but these faces still exist and are really fantastic to see.

Anaiis: I hope that more folks who are black and from the UK so seen and celebrated, right? Like the one of the biggest themes in the film is coffee and I feel like it’s universal, but having coffee prepared by a black barista, there’s a level of intimacy that happens with going to just pick up your coffee in barista knowing what kind of drink you want. but then there’s an artistry that I also wanted to illustrate, and I hope that it’s something that resonates with the British audience as well.

Ellis: There’s one shot in this film that really, really blew me away and just took me kind of for a spin. It’s after a very pivotal moment in the second act that
I don’t think I should spoil, but it’s specifically when we see Mel and she’s back in her apartment and she’s taking photos of herself. And I feel like the film visually– it’s mostly grounded and this moment felt very sort of surreal and like it wasn’t a part of reality, it stood out in the film for that reason. Could you explain some of the motivation behind that in breaking out of the style and highlighting this moment in your direction?

Anaiis: Absolutely, thank you for making that observation as well. Every time that moment comes in the film and I’m like watching with the audience, I’m always so stunned at people’s reactions because: 1. Mel’s partner and the way that it was written wasn’t meant to be like a surprise. 
And every time his character appears, folks like gasp, confused around him because she uses language like: “partner”. And I think they assume that she’s been seeing a woman, and so, even in trying to clear up the three act structure and move away from like a single character moving through this transformative arc. I kind of tried to restructure Drip Like Coffee where act 1 is Kali’s world and then when we get into Mel’s world in act 2, it feels like a different space. 
It’s still Brooklyn, but it’s meant to kind of be a bit more airy, still troubled but in a different way than Kali’s world, which is very dark and dense where we have darker colours in that space, the furniture and in their costuming. I must give credit to our production designer (Mary Peña) who really helped me think through the worlds of each of these characters very meticulously so that when we get into Mel’s world, there is some freeness and some airiness to the space, but there’s still some constraints between within her relationship, whether she’s not being fully honest with her partner about what it is that she wants, her workspace where she’s taking photographs is kind of seeped into her home space. His setup of kind of doing jewellery, making is also within their living spaces…..I wanted to show Brooklyn. I wanted to show just a different part. 
Like they were probably two blocks away in my mind when writing this story but live very different experiences.

Ellis: Tell me about the process that you have with casting and connecting them with the script because, it’s beyond just, you know, casting someone, it’s also having them look at the script and maybe changing things and making sure they’re connecting with what you’re doing and you’re creating the right environment for them to thrive. So how do you sort of gauge that as a director?

Anaiis: I think the short film version of this project helped me kind of expand on what my vision was from short to feature and continue to work with some of the performers from the short. So in the short film, Mel’s character is Mel still, and so as I was writing the script, I would say, “Hey, let’s talk about your character. Let’s think about this.” even over like years of us finishing the short, I’m like: “This is my next idea for it.  How are you feeling about this character? How do we make her a bit more in the world of who you are as a Panamanian black woman, who’s living in New York City as an artist? How do I bring that into this character?”

Aunt Terry (Deborah Singletary) felt like she was an anchor already. She’s a visual artist based in New York City that I just admired since I’ve known her at 18, who I knew I wanted to be the anchor. So, in finding her niece, I needed someone who kind of resembles her. And I came across Iman Artwell-Freeman, who plays Kali– when I was making the short and I invited her to audition but for some reason we just didn’t connect and when it came time to do the feature, I was like: “Hey, I don’t know if you remember, I reached out for the short version of this. I’m making the feature, would you be interested?” And she was like: “Absolutely, I remember” and really stepped into this character.

And once you have faces for those people, you start to look at their Instagram, you have coffee dates with them where you get a sense of their energy and their vibe. 
And then, of course, the table reads/rehearsals always help. We had a lot of fun with rehearsing because we got to stretch it, we got to try it out in a lot of different ways and then land in a sweet spot. That doesn’t always happen with independent films where we have the wiggle or the extra time to actually rehearse. But I also just wanted to make something dynamic, make a community film showing these a series of characters and their differences, but also how they align and then how they relate in certain spaces, one of my favourite characters is Bev. And why? 
Because when I wrote those words,  you would just hope that an actor gets it. During her audition, it was virtual, and she did a whole coffee set up and she just got the nuances of this character based on what was on the page. So that makes her fun when it’s time to shoot and then she’s improvising and we’re all holding our laughter and while we’re filming and in between tapes, just hysterically laughing because every single take with Bab (Brittney Jenkins) was just pure comedy. So this was really a collaborative effort and trusting my actors and them trusting me and playing. 
There is such a huge element of play that I wanted to convey on set, but also within the world of this film.

Ellis: There’s one thing you said about play and about you letting go from these characters and then leting actors take their place within it. 
Obviously, I think this film comes from a very personal place. I wouldn’t like to say autobiographical because I think that’s such a small lens to view something like this with, but when you’re writing something like this (which is so grounded and so human), how do you thread that line between: “I’m spilling it all out there” and also this is a film other people need to watch and need to have their own way into, how do I get the two?

Anaiis: ​​It’s a delicate dance, but it’s art making, right? Like art does come from a very personal space and I’d like to think that my art is personal, but not necessarily autobiographical. 
And I am inviting collaborative collaborators and artists into this project because they could bring something to it. And I’m not limited to what I think or what I envision as the writer as to the director, so in building out the story that is inspired by my life, I didn’t go through my own queer experience in the cafe. It was in college and like, no one wants to watch a film about intellectuals falling in love. I mean, I would, but it’s not something many people experience.

And so, making this film with my partner, who this story is like, it’s inspired by our coming together but just adapted into its own life. Even when we were doing the fundraising, so many baristas were like: “Hey, this is my story, thank you for making it. Here’s your donation.” And, that right there I was like: “oh, wait, like, even if you set it up as like: ‘this is my personal story, please help me make my movie.’ 
People are going to see themselves in the story and you have to really honor that and make room for it”. Because that, again, is the art making.

For me, being on set and recreating certain moments that happened in real life with my co-creator, who is my partner and also the production designer, who’s building the world– you have folks who are like: “Wait, there’s a couple leading this team here.” I was very cautious on if I tell people that we’re together, or if we don’t tell people we’re together. Not that it was a secret,
I just didn’t want actors to think that they needed to perform us. Like nah, I’m not that full of myself. I wanted to use characteristics of myself and of my partner and pour them into these characters and have those actors pour something into them. And so with Kali, Iman is seeped in Brooklyn and she had that Brooklyn aesthetic and vibe that I just wanted that I felt was like fluid but not quite masc, not quite all the way fem, but like Brooklyn. So she embodied that, and I wanted her to feel comfortable. And the guy who plays Lee– Ralphie Lopez, he was like: “Hey, I got questions about this story, but I’m gonna ask you after we wrap”. And I’m like: “Okay, cool, you can definitely ask me those questions after we wrap” but it felt like he was starting to pick up on like: “Wait, this is your story or…. but I really connected to this character, this is me!”. And so it’s kind of it where and that’s the black experience where we’re like, damn, we all went through something similar but not quite the exact similar thing.

Ellis: I know as a director, you kind of have to let your hands be free, but also there’s some part of you that’s gotta feel like: ‘they’ve got to understand this specific thing”. 
So what is that specific thing you want them to understand about this film?

Anaiis: At the core of it, it’s a love story, so if love becomes a universal theme that grounds them into the story, that’s it. It’s really about black women loving black women which I hope folks can really see and honor and see the beauty of that. 


Like I don’t know many arthouse films that capture or visualise black women looking at each other. I’m thinking of Moonlight which is so gritty, but it’s so pretty and beautiful, and we are really buying into this love story even though they’re like at different points in their lives. And so what I hope folks get from this is the beauty of black women’s love stories. 
And I think that is universal.

Ellis: Especially as a black cinephile myself, there’s a lot of films I’m very accustomed to watching films and being able to separate skin colour, setting or experience and connect to the story. I mean, see a film like: Phantom Thread. That’s in London in the 50s! 
And I can completely connect to that story! But I’m not as old as that guy, I’m not a fashion designer, so yeah, it’s just these things and hopefully people can do the same thing with our stories. Last one, could you tell me one special story that came off of set? A special day where everything aligned or maybe something really funny happened, just something that really stood out while in the creation of Drip Like Coffee?

Anaiis: Wow, there’s so many stories, because there was a lot of dancing in between takes, our production designer got her PhD, defended her dissertation in the middle of production! Like we had three birthdays. We filmed also in June of 2022, which was pride month, so the best moment would be the final scene and the final moment of filming. And it’s not the final scene in the film, the final scene that we filmed during production ended on Pride Sunday and we were in Chinatown, Manhattan on this little side block at the same time that the Pride parade had already happened few neighborhoods up the road.

While we were outside, we were kind of capturing this moment of them (Iman Artwell-Freeman and Kashanie Lagrotta) walking. There’s these beautiful lanterns on this block in Chinatown with the reds and the yellows and they’re having this moment against this wall, where again, we’re like” “Where are we gonna film?” I had said Chinatown but I had no idea where exactly, but we picked this block and it worked out perfectly….. 
there were like three other productions happening on this block simultaneously, like some dudes were filming a music video, we were like: “Hey, can we just get our scenes? And then you guys could go next?” and this is at, like, 8 PM at night and there was just like this moment at the end where we had this circle and everyone just kind of shared how special it was working on this film together. 


There were queer couples who were working on this project. There were our talented actors, like it was just like a full circle moment, but also a literal circle that folks formed in on the side block in Chinatown with our U-Haul with equipment parked right beside us and we just kind of went in a circle and talked about how special and how thankful we all were to be a part of this project. I thought that was one of the most beautiful ways to kind of culminate something so large, man.

This thing was backbreaking. 
I’m still recovering from doing a feature an independent feature because it’s physically exhausting, emotionally exhausting, mentally exhausting. There’s so many energies that you have to manage and you have to lead, and you have to be okay to lead the team. I was like: “How are we gonna get through?”  halfway through! I was like: “it’s a wrap, I think we got enough,
I think we’ve made something happen” and I wanted to throw in the towel, but my partner/production designer was like: “Nah, we can’t”. I’m like: “No, no, I think we’re good.” So she called my grandfather who we’ve been filming in his brownstone for like two weeks and he came over to my place and was like: “Hey, I know you’re feeling something right now, but we’re going to finish what we started”.

So to have my 80-year-old grandfather tell me that I need to finish this passion project of a a black lesbian love story was pretty epic as well. I would say those are two moments that I kind of hold with me in making this film.