77 YEARS OF AUTISIM RESEARCH.
3 STUDIES.
Only three studies across a 77-year review included Black autistic women and girls.
UNMASKED enters that absence from the inside—not as a clinical case study, but as a self-authored living archive.
I didn't start filming autism. I found it in the footage.
I sold and donated nearly everything I owned and began documenting an unconventional life in motion — crossing borders, learning new landscapes, raising and training the rescue puppy who would become my service dog, navigating epilepsy, work, solitude, relationships, access, advocacy and the freedom I had spent years trying to build.
I was also still masking.
Film and photography had been how I communicated creatively long before I had language for my neurodivergence. As the archive grew, the camera began revealing patterns I couldn't see from inside my own life.
More than 11,000 hours later, UNMASKED has become a first-person record of a Black woman discovering her autism while already living the life she had been told should prove she was capable of everything on her own.
The film isn't looking back and reconstructing that discovery. The camera was already there.
The story does not begin with diagnosis. The living archive shows what was there before I had the language to recognize it.
11,000 hours
Self-documented in real time , over 11TB of a life I was still learning to read myself.
3 years
Filming our rescue-to-service-dog journey and training
10 episodes
With story architecture already developed
1 archive
Authored from inside the life
Walk Inside the Living Archive of UNMASKED
Chapter 1: WE BUILT ACCESS TOGETHER
Before I had language for autism, I was already building access around the body and nervous system I had. Across years of footage, my service dog and I learned trust, regulation, public access, movement and one another.
THE SUMMIT -AUTONOMY / PARTNERSHIP
The photograph looks like adventure. The archive holds everything underneath it.
Training. Trust. Regulation. Access. The relationship that allowed both of us to move differently through the world.
We reached places together that I once thought independence meant reaching alone.
LEARNING THE TERRAIN - ADAPTATION / TRUST
Snow changed everything beneath us—the environment, the sensory experience and what we both needed to understand.
This is one frame from years of learning together: service-dog training not as a finished performance, but as an evolving relationship.
ACCESS CAN LOOK LIKE JOY - MOVEMENT / JOY
Disability does not enter UNMASKED only when something goes wrong.
Sometimes access looks like exploration.
Sometimes it looks like a Black autistic woman and her service dog occupying landscapes people are rarely taught to imagine us inside.
Chapter 2: MOVING THROUGH SYSTEMS
The same archive follows us through transportation, government spaces, housing, borders and public places—where ordinary movement repeatedly becomes an act of self-advocacy.
WHO GETS DESIGNED INTO THE FUTURE?
I photographed an autonomous vehicle while my service dog's nose entered the bottom of my frame.
An accidental self-portrait of UNMASKED emerged:
technology, mobility, disability, observation—and the body the future is supposed to include.
CROSSING BORDERS
Travel was never simply about collecting destinations.
My first passport, federal buildings, airports and border crossings became part of a much larger record of learning to advocate for a body and identity I was still learning to understand.
ACCESS TO HISTORY
Ancient places. Public spaces. Cultural institutions.
UNMASKED repeatedly returns to a deceptively simple question:
Who is assumed to belong here—and what happens when I arrive anyway?
Chapter 3: WHAT THE CAMERA HELD WHEN WORDS DIDN'T
The living and light of Adult Autism Acceptance, regulation & cross culture celebration & education, is the heart of UNMASKED's mission. Creating representation & access.
VALUES BECOME COMMUNITY
Plant-based living was never separate from the documentary.
Food becomes culture, advocacy, creativity, connection—and eventually part of the ecosystem that grew around what I was already documenting.
WHEN WORDS WENT QUIET
I meditate beside my service dog in a cemetery.
Some experiences reached the camera before they reached language.
Stillness became part of how I regulated, processed and listened to myself while living in motion.
THE LIFE BETWEEN THE PLOT POINTS
I filmed the pauses, too.
Water. Waiting. Observation. Solitude. Recovery. Beauty.
Because unmasking does not happen only in confrontations, diagnoses or acts of advocacy.
Sometimes it happens in what finally becomes quiet enough to notice.
Behind the Lens — Director’s Statement (Preview)
Filmed across countries and silence, UNMASKED is ancestral technology in motion — a living documentary created by a Black, Autistic, Queer, Vegan, Epileptic filmmaker, Natalee Eason and her self-trained service dog.
Read the Full Director’s Statement
For those who wish to understand the full vision behind UNMASKED — the lived filmmaking process, the ancestral lens, and the creative ecosystem that grew from it — you can download the complete Director’s Statement (PDF) below.
It’s written for producers, partners, and advocates who believe visibility should be self-directed — and who want to help bring this documentary, and the larger Vegan Soul Tribe movement, to life.
THE ARCHIVE CHANGED THE ARTIST, TOO.
"Film and photography were never separate practices for me. Both became ways of communicating, observing and preserving what I could not always explain in real time.
The visual language developed through documenting UNMASKED now extends into my professional photography and cinematography practice—editorial and documentary storytelling, commissioned work, and licensing from the larger independent archive." -Natalee.E.
OFFICIAL MEMBER — BLACK WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS BWP COMMISSIONED — AUTASTIC COMMUNITY
For Industry, Producers & Creative Executives
UNMASKED is ready for professional review.
I’m an autistic, queer, vegan filmmaker and autodidactic storyteller who has built a comprehensive, production-ready package that includes:
UNMASKED SERIES ARCHITECTURE
10-episode guide + character/narrative mapping
UNMASKED STORY SYSTEM
Theme, episode, conflict and arc development
EXECUTIVE STRATEGY
PR deck + ecosystem/partnership roadmap
EXPANSION
Spin-off development + M.A.M.M.A.L. ecosystem integration
I’ve built a multi-layered global framework — narrative, emotional, ancestral, and educational — with the infrastructure already complete. 11,000+ hours exist. The story architecture exists.
What UNMASKED needs now is the support to finish.
If you’re seeking authentic autistic storytelling, global mobility, Black female authorship, vegan sustainability, and a fresh cinematic voice — I’m prepared to collaborate.
For producers, distributors, commissioning editors, creative executives, impact partners and values-aligned brands.
Let’s build something that honors visibility, truth, and generational healing.
