EXCLUSIVE: Raquel Nave has signed with Paradigm—having recently wrapped a breakout role in the dramatic thriller Black Flies from Open Road and Sculptor Media. The film from director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (A Prayer Before Dawn), based on Shannon Burke’s novel of the same name, has Nave starring alongside Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan, Katherine Waterston, Michael Pitt and Mike Tyson.
Black Flies is about the paramedics who save our lives—and the toll it inflicts on theirs. It is a view of life on the streets and one medic’s struggle to maintain his desire to help, despite his growing fear that nothing he can do will make a difference. It is the story of lives that hang in the balance and the choices of two men caught in the middle. Its protagonist, Cross (Sheridan), is ready to do good. In preparation for his dream of medical school, he hits the streets driving an ambulance alongside Rutkovsky (Penn), a grizzled veteran and one of New York’s best medics. Details with regard to the character that Nave is playing have not been disclosed.
Burke, Ben Mac Brown and Ryan King wrote the pic, which was produced under the Sculptor Media banner alongside Force Majeure, James Masciello’s creative producing arm, wiip and Projected Picture Works. The film’s producers are Warren Goz (Sculptor Media), Eric Gold (Sculptor Media), Christopher Kopp, Lucan Toh, Penn (Projected Picture Works), John Ira Palmer (Projected Picture Works) and John Wildermuth (Projected Picture Works). EPs are Luke Rodgers, Sheridan, James Masciello, Matthew Sidari, Tom Ortenberg, King, Burke and Josh Stern (wiip). Open Road will release the film in the U.S., with FilmNation Entertainment handling international sales.
Nave is an actor, artist and model who has been seen in films including Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York and Bizarre, as well as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and the pilot Fashion Victim from Heathers scribe Daniel Waters. As an artist working with photography, video and performance, Nave uses her own body to explore identity, sexuality and motherhood. She has self-published volumes of her photos in S.A.D. (2015), On Your Knees Please (2014) and Live Free In Hell (2010) with BCCKS. In her most recent book PIG (2019,) she has transitioned into digital photography, turning the camera off of herself and onto her partner.
Nave has also been featured in fashion editorials for such magazines as Vogue Russia, i-D, Purple and Flaunt, working with iconic names like Ellen Von Unwerth, Jean Baptiste-Mondino, Rankin, Terry Richardson, Dan Jackson, Jim Mitchell and Thomas Lohr, among others.