AARIN BURCH

Aarin Burch's career has been dedicated to creating compelling explorations of how people navigate their interior landscapes and the mirror it holds to their relationships:  particularly children of Black/White parentage, her own mother-daughter conflicts, and a personal narrative revealing the fears and aspirations of the filmmaker as a lover and artist. The personal narratives she crafts on screen inspire audiences to delve deeper into their own journeys of introspection.

A San Francisco native, Aarin earned her B.F.A in film from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1991. As an early innovator in queer cinema, hers is a singular voice in film, representing the unique diversity of her upbringing as the biracial daughter of a jazz musician father and trailblazing self-taught artist mother. From her earliest memories in the epicenter of the Haight-Ashbury’s Summer of Love to her formative years in the colorful neighborhoods of the Fillmore, Chinatown, and Castro district, Aarin brings this vantage point of culture and creativity to her work. 

A frequently requested speaker and panelist, Aarin's notable screenings include the Interior Lives panel at the renowned Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts at the University of Chicago, Feminist Elsewheres in Berlin Germany, and The Block Museum of Art. Her landmark early films are touchstones in independent cinema, including Dreams of Passion (1989), one of the first films to feature a kiss shared between two Black women, and Spin Cycle (1989), an autobiographical look at Burch's relationship to herself, others, and the act of filmmaking. 

Currently, Aarin is making a feature length documentary about the life and legacy of her mother, acclaimed artist Laurel Burch.