press

New Jersey Stage 1
New Jersey Stage 2
​Portland Monthly
Portland Tribune
Oregon Arts Watch
More Devotedly podcast 
American Theatre Magazine
Conde Nast's "Them"
Oregon ArtsWatch
KBOO
LA Times
Orange County Register
Regal House Publishing podcast
Muskoka Queer Film Festival panel
Les Flicks
Short Stop International Film Festival
Tryon, North Carolina International Film Festival

Reviews

for Lilies
  • "Captures the real essence of our days." — Portia Munson
  • "A dream-like, luscious, and vibrant film with cathartic truths. Stunning!" — Willie Little
  • "Unsettling and tender." — Sarah Turner
  • "Familiar, close, so real, so visceral. This poem is a gift." — Corbin LaMont
  • "Empathetic, timely...present and inviting." — Rhiannon Flowers
  • "A film filled with dream-like, luscious and vibrant video, mixed with unexpected insertions of contemporary animation. Their cathartic truth consists of vivid descriptions, as they bear witness to life during the days of Covid-19. Stunning!" — Willie Little
  • "Each time I watch it, I find new moments to love...how queer survival can look so many different ways." — Renée Muzquiz
  • "Poignant, luscious, devastatingly tender. What is life giving? A breath, a breeze, a bird, a garden, a gaze at the grocery store, a loaf of ancestral bread. What isn't this film so beautifully about?" — Kady Monroe
  • ​"Joni speaks from a grounded place and pulls from a deep well of centered knowing." — Jackson Wai Chung Tse 謝瑋聰
  • "Many films were born out of 2020's global pandemic lockdown, but none are as riveting and gut-wrenching to digest as Joni Renee Whitworth's Lilies—who not only delivers a poetic odyssey with 'both of her hands' but one of the best short films of the year. Whitworth delivers a masterclass in screenwriting and sets herself apart from her wolfpack peers in serving a bunch of epic dialogue lines that are so twisted and yet all the more powerful and transcendental for it ("The end of the world makes me horny", "I've been instructed to breathe" and "We're jobless artists in a nation that hasn't paid for art in years, if ever"). These are the rare sort of quotes that have the power and weight to go down in film history—just like "May the Force be with you" (Star Wars, 1977) and "We're not in Kansas anymore" (The Wizard of Oz, 1939). Joni, copyright these! Whitworth poured her entire existence and being into her canvas without any reservation; sprinkled her soul with experimental flair and imagination; and ultimately made us have a taste of what it feels like to be a queer autistic kid in current society. Lilies leaves us so transfixed to a point of no return. Raw, personal, unique. Exactly the recipe that makes the most successful of films so timeless." — ​Adrian Perez
for Self Defense
​
  • "Powerful, angular prose." — Judith Murciano
  • "A wonderfully captivating and intimately reflective piece...unapologetic and uniquely conveyed. Deeply intriguing storytelling with beautiful technical elements. Not only impactful, but actionable."— Ashley Terer
for Pipe Dream
  • "Crisp, rhythmic, and well-laced with irony. The story carries a stark ring of truth, a lack of contrivance or invention. The voice is direct and unflinching...we believed the author and loved it." — Kallisto Gaia Press Chester B. Himes Memorial Short fiction Prize judges
  • “Something I enjoyed was the second performance when they said "If I don’t have an outlet, I'll turn it in on myself" and I think it's very important to have something you love doing! Staying busy and doing healthy things you love helps process your inner feelings so much.” — Emily
  • “I have had goosebumps almost this entire time and my eyes have leaked a bit. I have most loved the story of Maggie Jane. They used such pacing and passion as to draw the listener in and feel, see, the story. They took Maggie Jane’s traits that the world would see negatively and expressed them as reasons why she was amazing. We are all messy and we ALL have the right to be safe and loved in our bodies.” — Linda