Set in Austin,
Test Pattern sees a Black woman named Renesha (Hall) through her awkwardly sweet beginnings with her white boyfriend Evan (Brill), the stability and care of their relationship a few years down the line, her sexual assault by a stranger met on a night out (Fuller), and Evan’s inability to grasp why medical and carceral systems fail her. In this debut film, writer/director Shatara Michelle Ford almost seems to have set themself a creative puzzle to solve about portraying pain and trauma in film. How can we feel as much as possible while seeing the least?