Cody Stickels is a filmmaker and photographer focused on emotionally driven stories that nourish audiences. He’s a Chicken & Egg (Egg)celerator Lab fellow with A Texas Son and participated in the Film Independent Documentary Story Lab. Most recently, Cody was selected for the Voices With Impact Mental Health Short Film Grant for Five Years in 8mm.
His last film, A Night at Switch n’ Play, won the Audience Award at NYC’s NewFest Film Festival and screened internationally at BFI Flare, Inside Out, and Woodstock. Cody holds a BFA in Film & TV from New York University and currently serves as a Teaching Assistant while pursuing his MFA in Documentary Expression at the University of Mississippi’s Center for Southern Culture.
Connect and follow Cody’s work at www.codystickels.com and on Instagram.
FILM
A Night at Switch n’ Play
This film profiles the Brooklyn based drag and burlesque collective Switch n’ Play. Queer in every sense of the word, SNP spans the gender spectrum in life and on stage.
Mississippi Creates: Brejenn Allen
Mariel Sprock and Cody Stickels’ intention in making this documentary about the Mississippi based painter Brejenn Allen is to show how art can be a way to care for yourself while also caring for your community. Their central idea is that you can change the world through art when you take care of yourself first, and they wanted to explore how that looks in a real person’s life. Through following Brejenn’s routines, driving through Mississippi, working with kids, planning her projects, and creating her artwork, they aim to show how her creativity is shaped by the world around her and her interaction with it.
Further Accomplishments
2026
Five Years in 8mm – featured in the Voices with Impact World Premiere at the VIFF center in Vancouver, Canada June 3, 2026. This cohort includes 10 short films on the topic of mental health by filmmakers from across the world: The Philippines, USA, UK, Canada, and New Zealand.
A Texas Son – selected by Seed & Spark as part of their 2026 Staff Picks series. A Texas Son is a love letter from a transgender son to his father, charting a decade of mental health, identity, and masculinity, confronting the gender roles prescribed at birth and embracing the freedom of shedding them. Come join our family and help bring this project to life.