Marquis The Honey Bear’s Short ‘Ornithomancy’ is Heading to Festivals

9th March 2026 Richard Jones

One of our hosts of Bear World TV – Marquis The Honey Bear, has been working diligently on a new project – a short film called Ornithomancy, a passion project borne out of his love of film and birds. The short is now complete and entering the festival rounds.

We interviewed Marquis a while ago as he had just become Mr LA Bear, and of course he also has his own podcast Marquis and Eric Dream Of…. We are so very proud of him and excited to welcome him to his second ever cover story, but first on his own.

We also took some time to chat about the project, his inspiration and what’s next for him and the film.

Richard Jones: For those that do not know about Ornithomancy, tell us a little of what it’s about?

Marquis The Honey Bear: Ornithomancy is a short film about a big black anxious gay man on his way to a job interview, who bases all of his major decisions on the flight pattern on birds, a bird flying left meaning no,right meaning yes.

We all participate in the theater of job hunting, the professionalism that we force for an interview persona is a pretty absurd humiliation ritual. I wanted to make a film that tackles the comedy of balancing a job hunt on top of all the other responsibilities of adult life and relationships.

RJ: What was the inspiration for the story.

MTHB: I’ve always loved birds so much, birds are queer culture in a way, I will not elaborate but I think I’m right and you think it too. But I had fixated on this idea of divination from birds ever since reading The Iliad. I loved this idea that a bird flying right was good, and a bird flying left was bad, and how in that book it was a grand omen about the odds of winning or losing an epic Greek war. I wanted to take that idea of looking for signs to epic causes, and bring it into the modern mundane, such as asking birds if I’ll get the minimum wage job I’m interviewing for.

I wrote Ornithomancy as a one person show back in 2019 during a 24 hour play festival in a suburb outside of Seattle, WA. I had just gotten out of college, was looking for a job, and wrote this play in a small rinkydink theater while staying overnight in a strip mall. I wrote this story so fast, and we staged it within the next few hours; and even though I had written so many other things after that, I kept coming back to this story as my favorite thing I’d ever written. I think I wrote it so quickly, that I just didn’t have time to be precious about it, it captured my exact feelings about the absurdity of job hunting.

I got laid off from the first job I landed upon moving to LA in 2024, it was a cozy job, but it wasn’t filmmaking, the thing I moved out to LA to do. So, I had a “come to Jesus” moment, I realized if I didn’t try to make a film then and there, I never would. So, I revisited the one person show, made it a full ensemble film script, and now here we are. In short, my inspiration has always been loving birds and needing employment.

RJ. We often see easter eggs or loving nods to various movies from other movies, is there anything in the creation that is an homage to any of your favorite or inspirational movies in any way?

MTHB: Without giving away too much, there’s a few shots where I’m speaking directly into the camera about my woes, and I definitely wrote that as an homage to Spike Lee. My director, S. Vollie Osborn, and I both really love high saturations of color in film, so additionally in the Spike Lee fashion, we were inspired by the color treatment in Do The Right Thing. Steven Soderbergh also ended up being a bit of a loving nod in this, but I’ll wait until after the film to get more into that one. Film is trivially and non-trivially my everything, so we had a lot of discussion in pre-production about inspirations, I think the film is full of little homages. Ultimately, I really hope that people leave the film actively feeling like Ornithomancy was made by people who love film.

RJ: You have an impressive cast of familiar faces, is that just the luck of being in LA or any special hoops you had to go through to get them attached to the project?

MTHB: Genuinely so baffled by how lovely and talented this cast is! Carl Clemons-Hopkins (Hacks), Devere Rogers (Honk for Jesus Save Your Soul, Abbott Elementary), Michael Benjamin (comedian, A Spy Movie), Ari Friedman (Star Trek: Discovery), a little cameo from Mac Kahey (“MacDoesIt”), and more. I think most of the cast was in the director and I’s orbit in some small capacity. Carl and I had briefly interacted before through being in some of the same LA queer circles. When I was in the early stages of just trying to get this project off the ground, I sent the script to Carl and he graciously came on as an Executive Producer and was actually the first actor cast for the film. I had been such a fan of his, and to have him on this project I think made us all want to work even harder to make this the best film we could.

Our Director, S. Vollie Osborn, went to college with Devere Rogers, my producer, Michael Oberst, had worked with Michael Benjamin before, I met Ari at a UCB improv class, I was already friends with Mac through being homosexuals in the city. So to your point! It’s kind of the nature of being in LA, I do think everyone attached to the project really felt strongly about it or supporting me, which I’m endlessly grateful for, no huge hoops, we were excited to play I feel.

RJ: Tell us about how we can see it, where and when and what you envision for its future, or your next project.

MTHB: We’re submitting the film to festivals across the country and around the world, and we are very happy to announce that Ornithomancy will be having its world premiere at the iconic “Wicked Queer: Boston’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival” on April 9th! So, you’ll be able to see the film at that festival and hopefully many more film festivals soon! I definitely want to do an LA premiere pretty soon so please keep up with my socials for that one, I’ll be yapping all about that yellow carpet as soon as the opportunity arises.

For the future… I want to make a feature film. I will loudly declare that this is the goal, I want to make a feature length film, that’s the dream I will make come true. The next project I want to pursue is a feature script I’ve been working on for years; it’s the most personal and funny thing I’ve ever written. So, if you’re a rich gay reading this, hit me up… That’s also just an evergreen statement.

Cover Photo & Photos of Marquis in LA by Hannah @planet.hann

Also, I’m incredibly honored to be in Andy Langdon’s upcoming Bears documentary. I’ve been to two of those premieres now, it’s made with such love and care, and to be in a documentary about the history of bearhood feels surreal, to be embedded in that story is an honor. I’ll plug it in my Scruff or Growlr bios soon enough, I’m sure.