CRAIG HIGHBERGER, SUPERSTAR IN A HOUSEDRESS, 2004
Jackie Curtis is not a drag queen. Jackie is an artist. A pioneer without a frontier." -- Andy Warhol. Superstar in a Housedress examines the life and legend of Warhol transvestite superstar Jackie Curtis who was a poet, playwright, performer, and one of the great personalities of his time...
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON, 2017
Victoria Cruz investigates the mysterious 1992 death of black gay rights activist and Stonewall veteran, Marsha P. Johnson. Using archival interviews with Johnson, and new interviews with Johnson's family, friends and fellow activists…
THOMAS ALLEN HARRIS, THROUGH A LENS DARKLY, 2014
The first documentary to explore the role of photography in shaping the identity, aspirations, and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present, Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People probes the recesses of American history through images that have been suppressed, forgotten, and lost…
SHAKA MCGLOTTEN, BLACK DATA, 2014
Shaka McGlotten employs the notion of “black data” to explore how black queers trouble the invisible or taken-for-granted operations of states and corporations that seek to acquire and store detailed dossiers of citizen-consumers…
PARIS IS BURNING, JENNIE LIVINGSTON, 1990
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City’s African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene…
ANA MENDIETA, FUEGO DE TIERRA, 1987
Released two years after the artist’s death, this compelling documentary tracks Mendieta’s life from her childhood in Cuba and tumultuous early years in the United States through her later success in New York and abroad…
WHERE I’M FROM POEM
“Where I'm From” grew out of my response to a poem from Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet (Orchard Books, 1989; Theater Communications Group, 1991) by my friend, Tennessee writer Jo Carson. All of the People Pieces, as Jo calls them, are based on things folks actually said, and number 22 begins, “I want to know when you get to be from a place…
THE ROOM OF SILENCE, ELOISE SHERRID, 2016
“The Room of Silence,” is a short documentary about race, identity and marginalization at the Rhode Island School of Design. Based on interviews conducted by myself and the campus organization Black Artists and Designers, this film contains well under a third of the stories we collected in March 2016, and an unknown fraction of the stories belonging to students we didn’t have a chance to meet with…