Number Ones

Number Ones perceives all-the-time-friends, sometimes enemies, Stelly G and Kiki Oner, battling in the first sneaker category in Eora at March’s West Ball. Inspired by Akerman’s One Day Pina Asked…, the film collects shots and edited impressions of the day. Time isn’t linear, the past lives here alongside the future, and Stelly calls on both in the present. I think she knew she would lose the category, and I loved watching her humility, her perseverance, the process, throughout the day, and watching Kiki step even further into her power with the support that comes with the generative competition of a best friend who tells the truth. At one point, off camera, during make-up, Stelly gets her period and runs out to the car to find tampons. Ruffling through her overnight bag she asks: ‘Yes please, yes please, yes please, yes please’.

Directed by Jen Atherton, André Shannon