Torn between cultural expectations of her strict African Parents and her own desires, a first-generation American teen girl rebels and is cast out of her home, only to find unexpected refuge in the arms of a trans aunt her family erased.
Sixteen-year-old Siya Bayete is caught between two worlds: the vibrant chaos of teen life in Boston and the strict expectations of her conservative African immigrant parents. When a rebellious night out spirals into chaos at an unsupervised party—complete with underage drinking, drugs, and a near-tragedy—Siya is caught in the aftermath and punished harshly. Her parents, furious and humiliated, deliver an ultimatum: she’s being sent to a boarding school in Zimbabwe to be “straightened out.”
Refusing to be exiled from the only home she knows, Siya runs away, crashing at a friend’s house before seeking out the one person she was raised to forget—her Aunt Chacha, a proud, glamorous trans woman her father disowned years ago. Chacha reluctantly takes Siya in, setting firm rules: she can stay, but only if she helps out at the hair salon.
As Siya adjusts to life with Chacha, the two begin to bond over shared pain and resilience. Through Chacha’s unapologetic presence, Siya begins to question the rigid definitions of family, identity, and womanhood she was raised with. Meanwhile, her parents wrestle with their own fears, traditions, and fractured memories.
Fireflies Don’t Burn is a heartfelt coming-of-age story about rebellion, reconciliation, and reclaiming one’s identity. At its core, it’s about what happens when the child who no longer fits inside her family’s expectations finds freedom in the arms of someone they tried to erase—and how both must learn to heal in the light of truth.
Thato R. Mwosa is an award-winning illustrator, screenwriter, playwright, and filmmaker. Her films have been broadcast nationally and internationally. Her first feature film, Memoirs of a Black Girl, premiered at the 2021 Boston Globe’s Black History Month Film Festival, and it won the Best Feature Film award at the 2021 Hamilton Black Film Festival and the 2021 Roxbury International Film Festival (RIFF). Additionally, Thato won Best Feature Director at the 2021 Hamilton Film Festival. She has been featured on NPR and the Boston Globe.
Thato was a finalist for the 2019 Mass Cultural Art Fellowship in the Dramatic Writing category. Thato's latest script, Rati, was selected for The Stowe Narrative Lab (2024) and the prestigious Meryl Streep funded The Writer's Lab NYC (2024)
Thato has taught film and screenwriting classes at Boston University, Harvard University, and Lesley University and is an Assistant Professor at Emerson College.
