THE MORGUE TWINS
In Rebecca Blandón‘s short film THE MORGUE TWINS, retired identical twin brothers Melvin and Marvin Morgan reflect on their over 20 years in the death-care industry.
In sixteen minutes, these men express a profound outlook on life and death that most of us would rather sweep under the rug. Audiences get a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a morgue, autopsy tools, and the Morgan brothers’ very specific and necessary jobs. They discuss the job’s unfathomable emotional toll. Even if they claim to disassociate, the audience can see it written all over their faces.
Besides the touching personal revelations, true crime fans will be riveted by the insider knowledge and what feel like secrets of the profession. (I’m looking at you, SVU faithful.) Melvin and Marvin are on a higher plane of humanity. These extraordinary gentlemen have lived their lives in service of everyone else. This short honors their legacy with all the respect and kindness they have earned.
The Morgue Twins premieres on Black Public Media’s (BPM) AfroPoP Digital Shorts series, Monday, October 19. Rebecca Blandón’s film follows retired mortuary technicians and identical twins Marvin and Melvin Morgan as they reflect on two decades of work in New York City’s death-care industry and consider their own mortality. The film will stream on Black Public Media’s YouTube channel.
For more than two decades, the Morgan twins, who were named after a funeral home, worked in close proximity to death. Melvin worked at Elmhurst Hospital, including when it was an epicenter of New York City’s COVID-19 pandemic; Marvin worked at the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office and served after tragedies like the September 11, 2001, attacks, and the American Airlines Flight 587 crash in Queens later that year. As technicians, their duties were exacting and intimate: collecting bodies, assisting with autopsies and caring for the dead. In their spare time, the twins advocated for the living — creating local sports youth leagues, advocating for voter rights, and collaborating with the city council to create a safe and thriving community. In the film, the brothers speak candidly about the toll their work has had on their psyches and how it informs their perspectives on life and death.
Blandón, a Nicaraguan-American documentary filmmaker born and raised in the Bronx, served as director, cinematographer and editor of the film. Her independent films, including Corpus Christi, Glen Eden and Run the Meter, have screened at festivals, been exhibited at museums and received support from The Bronx Documentary Center, The Jacob Burns Film Center, Rooftop Films and the New York State Council on the Arts. As a visual journalist, she has created award-winning work for news organizations including The New York Times, Axios, PBS Frontline and The Boston Globe.
BPM is a Harlem-based national media arts nonprofit that funds and helps distribute stories about the Black experience and supports the filmmakers and media makers who tell them.
“Rebecca’s film is a moving portrait of two brothers who spent more than two decades facing what most of us look away from, meeting death with professionalism, humanity and grace,” said Denise A. Greene, BPM director of programs and curator of AfroPoP Digital Shorts. “The twins’ service is part of an enduring tradition of care in Black communities, where tending to the deceased has long been an act of dignity, service and respect.”
With The Morgue Twins, BPM continues its commitment to advancing Black stories, despite Congress’s 2025 rescission vote, which defunded public media and eliminated $1.8 million from BPM’s budget. In response, BPM launched the Black Stories Production Fund, supported by a grassroots fundraising campaign. The 1.8 Million Donors campaign seeks to raise $9 million to help ensure that Black stories are never again left vulnerable to political interference or chronic underinvestment.
To support BPM’s Black Stories Production Fund, visit: https://secure.everyaction.com/IkFxVSdjX0qpQkceW1r27g2.
For more information about BPM, go to blackpublicmedia.org or follow it on social media at @blackpublicmedia (IG, FB, TikTok and LinkedIn).
ABOUT BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA:
Black Public Media supports the development of visionary content creators and distributes stories about the global Black experience to inspire a more equitable and inclusive future. For nearly 50 years, we’ve invested more than $18 million toward iconic documentaries and innovative immersive media projects. We help independent makers — especially those whose work might otherwise be overlooked — bring their stories to life and reach audiences.
BPM-supported projects have earned numerous awards, including five Anthem Awards, five Emmys, 10 Peabodys, 14 Emmy nominations and an Academy Award nomination.
Director Andrew Neel uses Witold Szablowski‘s book as the basis of his Tribeca 2026 doc How To Feed A Dictator. Call it food porn meets a global authoritarian playbook. This is a brilliant film, if you can stomach it.
Director Allison Sloan Berg‘s Tribeca 2026 doc Time Warp, and I see you shiver with Antici… pation. September 2022 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a small theatre dares to put on a Shadow Cast production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Theatre director, producer, choreographer, house manager, and star of the show, Kenny Starling, brings us into the industrious, loving, and hardworking theatre company that delivers excitement and love to an otherwise quiet, conservative, and seemingly forgotten town. 
Theatre has always been a safe space, long before that became a political buzzword. Time Warp appears relatively straightforward in its initial presentation. Berg features cast members’ backgrounds, rehearsals, and most surprisingly, a city council meeting that does not go the way we think it will. 
Huge ups to music supervisor Doug Bernheim for the soundtrack, which features the OG Frank-N-Furter, Tim Curry, Siouxsie, Betty Davis, and Jobriath. Frank Keraudren’s editing, particularly the five-day-out rehearsal montage, opening night, and the credits, is delicious. Loved seeing huge Broadway stars line up as Executive Producers! Berg boasts Josh Gad, Billy Porter, and John Cameron Mitchell.
For more Tribeca 2026, 
The film sucks you in by introducing the horrid history, but then allows the present attraction to act as a reclamation of power for the atrocities once committed there. Archival newspaper clips, alongside a perfectly ominous score, highlight the sickening language and mindset of Pennhurst’s 1907 origin. The film begins with a warning. Fifteen minutes in, the viewer will recognize its necessity. 
Confessional lyrics that make you cry (that’s a warning for around the 20-minute mark, but not the last), paired with gorgeously cut close-ups in the church studio, sweep you away. It feels like a live concert just for you. Alexandra delivers the organic revelations of creation. 
In this rhythmic psychological thriller, a lonely aspiring teen actress finds herself drawn to an acting teacher who pulls her into a web of desire and control, blurring the lines of seduction and obsession.
After backing out of a suicide pact that leaves her husband dead, a sheltered farmer’s wife flees the shame and hidden debts that destroyed their life together and disappears into the port city of Eilat, where an unexpected bond with migrants, refugees, and a compassionate hotel manager forces her to rebuild herself from nothing and discover a life beyond the one she was told to live.
After a crushing breakup, Lucy moves back in with her eccentric single dad and dives into bad dates, false starts, and growing pains. Big-hearted and sharply funny, Lucy Schulman is a charming comedic coming-of-age story from multihyphenate Tribeca alum Ellie Sachs.
Synopsis: When the buffet where Zeke’s mom works closes down, he’s forced to entertain the wild advances of a rich regular who is weirdly and vehemently obsessed with becoming his father.
After a breakup, rudderless millennial Jane hires a team of Gen-Z consultants to reinvent her life. But what begins as a makeover soon spirals into a sharp social media satire about image, app culture, and the cost of becoming someone else.
SXSW 2026 true-crime doc I Got Bombed at Harvey’s tells the off-the-wall tale of a casino, a ransom note, a homemade bomb with 1000 pounds of dynamite, and 24 hrs. Your jaw will drop as one absolute narcissistic lunatic’s spiral brings his kids down with him.
SXSW 2026 Watchlist
The oldest generation speaks about the legacy of Emmett Till and the importance of passing on that history from one generation to the next. Glendora created the Emmett Till museum in 2005 as a way to apologize to the Till family for their lack of engagement. They recount the abhorrent entitlement of white people and the aggression and violence they brought to the doorsteps of the African American community members.
Glendora is a snapshot of America’s authentic history of racial atrocities and economic disparity, but the strength of Black culture, excellence, empathy, and community shine brightest in Glendora. Their genuine pride is infectious. This country can learn from its relentless spirit to equally honor the past and change the future.
Seth Breedlove explores the lore behind a Michigan cryptid in Dawn of the Dogman. The film plays out in chapters. Editing from Santino Vitale and Seth Breedlove is fast-paced and endlessly intriguing. History buffs will instantly connect with the style, as eyewitnesses and journalists expound while the viewer is treated to maps, archival footage, and so much more. 
One witness suggests these creatures are government assets, detailing his unsettling encounter and the aftermath. Linda Godfrey‘s extensive career in cryptozoology speaks for itself. But her work solidified for her the moment she came face to face with a mysterious creature alongside the insight of a Native American game warden. 
The opening credits give Spielberg‘s Amazing Stories meets Ripley’s Believe It or Not! vibes (a huge compliment). Cinematographers Zac Palmisano, Courtney Breedlove, and Tyler Hall beautifully captured the variety of Michigan landscapes. Brandon Dalo provides an original score that balances mystery and lightness.
Overall, Dawn of the Dogman is a solid entry into the cryptid genre. There is most certainly a built-in audience for the film. Don’t believe me? Just look at the number of Kickstarter backers in the closing credits. Cryptid lore is big business and great entertainment for all ages. 
For more documentary coverage, 
![The Merchants of Joy - Prime Video - [press.amazonmgmstudios.com]](https://i0.wp.com/reelnewsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Merchants-of-Joy-Prime-Video-press.amazonmgmstudios.com_.png?resize=678%2C379&ssl=1)
The film is a collection of personalities all jockeying to outdo each other. Greg looks like Santa and is happy to dress as such for the local kids. His son, Little Greg, is poised to take over the family business as his father battles cancer. Brooklynite George (who used to work for Greg) hopes to find love this season and brings bravado to the group. Heather is nine years sober. You will find her supporting those struggling on a similar path. Ciree takes the reins from her parents after 30 years. All of them find themselves under the thumb of the mysterious Kevin Hammer. Think of him as the Christmas Tree Mafia Boss.
The film is a countdown to Christmas, tracking the complicated and expensive logistics of purchasing trees, trucking them sometimes across the country, bidding on street corner permits, setting up shop, all while navigating weather, workforce, and the economy. It’s a risky business that can be rewarding in the end. The job is physically taxing and emotionally exhausting, but its impact on building family traditions is worth its weight in gold. 
Aniskovich intersperses sit-down interviews with action on the ground. The pièce de résistance are the scenes mimicking the stop-motion animation in Christmas classics like 
This heartwarming doc has some amazing personalities. Audrey is Sound. Her infectious wonder is the epitome of SILVER SCREAMERS. David is Special Effects. With his puppeteering skills, the film’s villain comes alive. Diane is in charge of Makeup. Her theatre background is key to her role. Sonny is the Camera Operator. He is reactivating the dreams of his youth. 
The team takes on their jobs with a refreshing enthusiasm. Watching each one tackle their assignments is like a boot camp into the complexities of filmmaking. Editor Lee Walker delivers an incredibly engaging montage of their initial endeavors. The opening credits are integrated into the film’s storyboards. It’s a brilliant device. 
SILVER SCREAMERS acts as an advocacy pitch for art therapy at every age. Wait until you hear the ADR session. It’s a riot. The horror homage final scene is the cherry on top. Fantastic Fest audiences are in for a real treat.
![Lilith Fair_ Building a Mystery - [tiff.net]](https://i0.wp.com/reelnewsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/Lilith-Fair_-Building-a-Mystery-tiff.net_.png?resize=678%2C344&ssl=1)
You must be logged in to post a comment.