Laura Conway

Dolphy is a short film about a lonely botanist whose erotic fixation on her boss, Mrs. Daylily, spirals into a lush and hallucinatory descent. Working in a research greenhouse and surrounded by exotic flora, Dolphy becomes intoxicated by magical pollen and her own unfulfilled desire and begins to indulge. Shot in a richly constructed world, the film draws from magical realism, drag, and mid-century melodrama to explore the politics of looking.

Inspired by theories of the female gaze, the film asks what it means to desire—and to be watched—within systems that have historically framed women as objects. Camp and artifice are central tools here: horse girls, red clogs, oysters, harp players, the black lodge. Dolphy is about the strange pleasure of seeing and being seen.