1. Photo: Working still from Billy & Aaron                           Image Maker: Rodney Evans, Part 2We continue our conversation with director/writer Rodney Evans who will be at the Schomburg Center to showcase his short films as well as clips from his feature-length films including the forthcoming, The Happy Sad.What motivates you to work in a visual medium like film?I’ve always been interested in the ways that stories and emotions can be conveyed through a visual medium and how subtext gets communicated through movements, looks and gestures. At the same time I am fascinated by memory, dreams and the subjective nature of history. Which stories get preserved & passed on, and which ones slip through the cracks?I was always aware of the lack of film and television representation that reflected any aspect of my experience. I wanted to be an active agent in changing that situation as opposed to bemoaning the state of the things from the sidelines. Since I have also dabbled in the many different art forms (dance, music, fiction writing, acting, photography) film was always a way to combine all of these disparate interests within one medium.Any films you’d recommend that are out now?Funny enough, the one that I would recommend out now would be Portrait of Jason directed by Shirley Clarke in 1967. She is one of my favorite filmmakers and her two films Portrait of Jason (1967) and The Cool World (1963) are ones that I go back to over and over again. All of her works has been meticulously restored by Milestone Films and Portrait of Jason is currently playing at The IFC Center in New York. I discovered her films on a dusty shelf at Kim’s Video in the early 90’s and found both of these films to be deeply affecting and inspiring. Jason is one of the first film representations of an out, black, gay man and is the sole focus of the film. He is a born storyteller and hysterically funny yet also kind of tragic in a way that I think we can all relate to. He is The Happy Sad in many ways…                                           **************The Ordinary People film series concludes with Director/Writer Rodney Evans who will showcase two of his earlier short films, “Two Encounters” (1999) and “Close to Home” (1998), a clip from “Brother to Brother” (2004), a recent short film, “Billy and Aaron” (2010) and an excerpt from his upcoming feature-length film, “The Happy Sad” (2013). After the screening, there will be a Q&A with Evans. Free and open to the public.

    Photo: Working still from Billy & Aaron                   

           Image Maker: Rodney Evans, Part 2

    We continue our conversation with director/writer Rodney Evans who will be at the Schomburg Center to showcase his short films as well as clips from his feature-length films including the forthcoming, The Happy Sad.

    What motivates you to work in a visual medium like film?
    I’ve always been interested in the ways that stories and emotions can be conveyed through a visual medium and how subtext gets communicated through movements, looks and gestures. At the same time I am fascinated by memory, dreams and the subjective nature of history.

    Which stories get preserved & passed on, and which ones slip through the cracks?
    I was always aware of the lack of film and television representation that reflected any aspect of my experience. I wanted to be an active agent in changing that situation as opposed to bemoaning the state of the things from the sidelines. Since I have also dabbled in the many different art forms (dance, music, fiction writing, acting, photography) film was always a way to combine all of these disparate interests within one medium.

    Any films you’d recommend that are out now?
    Funny enough, the one that I would recommend out now would be Portrait of Jason directed by Shirley Clarke in 1967. She is one of my favorite filmmakers and her two films Portrait of Jason (1967) and The Cool World (1963) are ones that I go back to over and over again. All of her works has been meticulously restored by Milestone Films and Portrait of Jason is currently playing at The IFC Center in New York.

    I discovered her films on a dusty shelf at Kim’s Video in the early 90’s and found both of these films to be deeply affecting and inspiring. Jason is one of the first film representations of an out, black, gay man and is the sole focus of the film. He is a born storyteller and hysterically funny yet also kind of tragic in a way that I think we can all relate to. He is The Happy Sad in many ways…

                                               **************

    The Ordinary People film series concludes with Director/Writer Rodney Evans who will showcase two of his earlier short films, “Two Encounters” (1999) and “Close to Home” (1998), a clip from “Brother to Brother” (2004), a recent short film, “Billy and Aaron” (2010) and an excerpt from his upcoming feature-length film, “The Happy Sad” (2013).

    After the screening, there will be a Q&A with Evans. Free and open to the public.

  2.     Image Maker: Rodney Evans, Part 1I say celebrate. We are so very fortunate to be living in a time where there are so many black queer filmmakers creating probing documentaries, entertaining short films and absorbing feature-length works. Black queer films are available through distribution companies such as California Newsreel and Third World Films and on Netflix. We were extremely grateful to offer a forum for their unique and inspiring voices at the Schomburg.On Tuesday May 7th at 6:30 pm, director/writer Rodney Evans will be at the Schomburg to showcase some of his short films and clips from his features, including the forthcoming, The Happy Sad. Synopsis: The Happy Sad follows two couples (one black, gay couple and one white, straight yet bi-curious) as they navigate open relationships and sexual identity.                                               ********* Mr. Evans shares insights about his new film: The Happy Sad The film really evolved out of my friendship with the playwright Ken Urban. We met in the summer of 2008 when we both had artist residencies at Macdowell. Ken invited me to a production of the stage version of The Happy Sad at the Summer Plays Festival at The Public Theater in 2009. I was really taken with the characters and thought about how these issues of trust, monogamy, fidelity and experimentation in the age of internet hookups were playing out in my own life and within my immediate circle of friends. They were issues that felt so common but rarely represented with the kind of honesty, empathy and humor that you see in The Happy Sad. Ken and I began discussing how it could work as a film and he was really open to transforming the piece so that it worked as a film. He did the adaptation but I was very closely involved and gave notes and feedback on each successive draft.I was also coming off of a great experience participating in The Binger Film Lab’s Directing Programme in Amsterdam where I was able to make a ten-minute short film, Billy and Aaron, in eight hours with a skeleton crew of three people. The film premiered at Tribeca in 2010 and I was really galvanized by the experience of making it. I wanted to utilize a similar production model for a low budget feature where the focus would be on the writing and the performances. At the same time I wasn’t interested in getting caught up in casting “name” actors and chasing financing for years. So we decided to do a small crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter in May 2011 and if it was successful we would move immediately into casting and then into production. Lucky for us this plan worked and we shot the film in the summer of 2011 in a very hectic, jam-packed 16 days with a crew largely comprised of my amazing students from Temple University.                                                    *************The Ordinary People film series concludes with Director/Writer Rodney Evans who will showcase two of his earlier short films, “Two Encounters” (1999) and “Close to Home“(1998), a clip from “Brother to Brother” (2004), a recent short film, “Billy and Aaron” (2010) and an excerpt from his upcoming feature-length film, “The Happy Sad” (2013).After the screening, there will be a Q&A with Evans. Free and open to the public.

        Image Maker: Rodney Evans, Part 1

    I say celebrate. We are so very fortunate to be living in a time where there are so many black queer filmmakers creating probing documentaries, entertaining short films and absorbing feature-length works.

    Black queer films are available through distribution companies such as California Newsreel and Third World Films and on Netflix.

    We were extremely grateful to offer a forum for their unique and inspiring voices at the Schomburg.

    On Tuesday May 7th at 6:30 pm, director/writer Rodney Evans will be at the Schomburg to showcase some of his short films and clips from his features, including the forthcoming, The Happy Sad.

    Synopsis: The Happy Sad follows two couples (one black, gay couple and one white, straight yet bi-curious) as they navigate open relationships and sexual identity.

                                                  *********

    Mr. Evans shares insights about his new film: The Happy Sad

    The film really evolved out of my friendship with the playwright Ken Urban. We met in the summer of 2008 when we both had artist residencies at Macdowell. Ken invited me to a production of the stage version of The Happy Sad at the Summer Plays Festival at The Public Theater in 2009.

    I was really taken with the characters and thought about how these issues of trust, monogamy, fidelity and experimentation in the age of internet hookups were playing out in my own life and within my immediate circle of friends. They were issues that felt so common but rarely represented with the kind of honesty, empathy and humor that you see in The Happy Sad.

    Ken and I began discussing how it could work as a film and he was really open to transforming the piece so that it worked as a film. He did the adaptation but I was very closely involved and gave notes and feedback on each successive draft.

    I was also coming off of a great experience participating in The Binger Film Lab’s Directing Programme in Amsterdam where I was able to make a ten-minute short film, Billy and Aaron, in eight hours with a skeleton crew of three people. The film premiered at Tribeca in 2010 and I was really galvanized by the experience of making it. I wanted to utilize a similar production model for a low budget feature where the focus would be on the writing and the performances. At the same time I wasn’t interested in getting caught up in casting “name” actors and chasing financing for years.

    So we decided to do a small crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter in May 2011 and if it was successful we would move immediately into casting and then into production. Lucky for us this plan worked and we shot the film in the summer of 2011 in a very hectic, jam-packed 16 days with a crew largely comprised of my amazing students from Temple University.

                                                        *************

    The Ordinary People film series concludes with Director/Writer Rodney Evans who will showcase two of his earlier short films, “Two Encounters” (1999) and “Close to Home“(1998), a clip from “Brother to Brother” (2004), a recent short film, “Billy and Aaron” (2010) and an excerpt from his upcoming feature-length film, “The Happy Sad” (2013).
    After the screening, there will be a Q&A with Evans.

    Free and open to the public.

  3. Ordinary People BGLA Film Series : Pariah

    On April 2 at 6:30 p.m, join us at the Schomburg for our Ordinary People BGLA film series screening of Pariah by Dee Rees. The film is about a Brooklyn teenager exploring her identity, friendships, heartbreak, and family drama. Starring Kim Wayans and the up-and-coming star Adepero Oduye . FREE! http://ow.ly/jtaXf

  4. BGLA Ordinary People Film Series: A Marlon Riggs’ Retrospective

    The Black Gay & Lesbian Archive’s Film and Book series - Ordinary People presents

    A Marlon Riggs Retrospective - Screening and Panel Discussion

    Affirmations, Anthem and Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret)

    On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. 

    Marlon Riggs (1957-1994) was a gay African-American filmmaker, educator, essayist, and human rights activist. Riggs produced, wrote, and directed several television documentaries, including Ethnic Notions, Tongues Untied, Color Adjustment, and Black Is… Black Ain’t. Riggs’ aesthetically innovative and socially provocative films examine past and modern representations of race, gender and sexuality in the US. 

    We asked our panelists to talk about what excites them about Marlon Riggs’s work. Here’s what they had to say: 

     

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    “He was a fiercely intelligent person who was also very down-to-earth and regular… a sweeter person you couldn’t find, except when it had to do with business.  He was quite matter-of-fact about what he wanted, what he would and wouldn’t do.  And that came through in the quality and universality of his work, the fact that it stands the test of time.”—Al Cunningham

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    “25 years after he created Tongues Untied, the film is still relevant. There are areas where we can see the conversation has grown and expanded in terms of black masculinity and sexual identity, but there are still people who haven’t seen the film but who watch it for the first time and have a similar reaction to the work as people did during the height of the culture wars of the late 80s and 90s.” —Rhea Combs

     

    image

    “I find Marlon’s work exciting because as Alice Walker said years ago, he was “undaunted by anticipated criticism,” which means he was fearless.  I also liked that he dug into sensitive areas around race, gender and sexuality for everyone, but that he particularly wanted to communicate with Black folks about these issues. He challenged us to examine issues with the hope that – in the end - we would be stronger.”—Cornelius Moore

  5. What impact did “The Polymath, or The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman” have on your personal life as you were creating this project?

    “I wondered how I, a straight white filmmaker in a completely strange environment, could possibly find the courage to do justice to this subject. Although I had traveled and made films in West Africa, and Central and South America where I had justifiably felt a complete outsider, the feeling of being out of my depth in New York was very strange.

    My filmmaking style is to try and be as unobtrusive as possible, to avoid giving directions, to follow the subject instead of lead it, and to let the natural flow of events suggest the direction of the film. Making a film with/about Chip was full of surprises, and one of them was how completely his openness to life and experience helped me find courage that I didn’t know that I had.”—Fred Barney Taylor

    Tomorrow, December 4 at 6:30 p.m. the Schomburg Center’s BGLA will screen The Polymath, or the Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. After the screening, join the filmmaker for a dialogue. Free.

    Register here and spread the word!

  6. Michelle Parkerson, co-director (with Ada Gay Griffin) of A Litany For Survival: the Life and Work of Audre Lorde, shares her insights and thoughts about the film, as well as expounds on the beauty of collaborative work.   “On a very personal level, working on LITANY, at the invitation of Ada Gay Griffin, helped me get some closure around my own mother’s death from cancer 5 years prior to beginning the film.  There were as well many life-altering meetings and exchanges with the vibrant friends, followers, fellow artists and activists in Audre’s world.  It broadened my understanding, as a writer, of the transformation of words into action. Very importantly, I discovered the beauty of a good, enduring collaboration with co-director/producer Ada Gay Griffin and the changing community of film crew members and editors.  Independent filmmaking no longer meant an individually-driven/auteur process resting on the shoulder of one person.  We were all responsible, with Audre’s input guiding us, for what LITANY became. Politically, it was frontline exposure to the essential and historical connectivity of human rights and other liberation struggles worldwide.  I agree with Ada Gay that the 90-minute version of LITANY is truer to and more inclusive of everything the three of us had envisioned.  Many anecdotes told to us by Audre Lorde or by others about Audre I wanted to situate as reenactments in the film or as interpretive/experimental images laced throughout its structure. But early on in the making of the documentary we arrived at an agreement that kept us from going too far on cinematic tangents that would distract from Audre’s biography and work. Images of Audre Lorde dancing (which she loved to do…) weren’t available, but fortunately she is pictured doing so, exuberantly, in Dagmar Schultz’s new documentary, AUDRE LORDE: The Berlin Years.” On November 20 at 6:30 p.m. the Schomburg Center’s BGLA will screen A Litany for Survival. After the screening, join the filmmakers for a dialogue. Free. Register here and spread the word!

    Michelle Parkerson, co-director (with Ada Gay Griffin) of A Litany For Survival: the Life and Work of Audre Lorde, shares her insights and thoughts about the film, as well as expounds on the beauty of collaborative work.  

    “On a very personal level, working on LITANY, at the invitation of Ada Gay Griffin, helped me get some closure around my own mother’s death from cancer 5 years prior to beginning the film.  There were as well many life-altering meetings and exchanges with the vibrant friends, followers, fellow artists and activists in Audre’s world.  It broadened my understanding, as a writer, of the transformation of words into action.

    Very importantly, I discovered the beauty of a good, enduring collaboration with co-director/producer Ada Gay Griffin and the changing community of film crew members and editors.  Independent filmmaking no longer meant an individually-driven/auteur process resting on the shoulder of one person.  We were all responsible, with Audre’s input guiding us, for what LITANY became. Politically, it was frontline exposure to the essential and historical connectivity of human rights and other liberation struggles worldwide. 

    I agree with Ada Gay that the 90-minute version of LITANY is truer to and more inclusive of everything the three of us had envisioned.  Many anecdotes told to us by Audre Lorde or by others about Audre I wanted to situate as reenactments in the film or as interpretive/experimental images laced throughout its structure. But early on in the making of the documentary we arrived at an agreement that kept us from going too far on cinematic tangents that would distract from Audre’s biography and work.

    Images of Audre Lorde dancing (which she loved to do…) weren’t available, but fortunately she is pictured doing so, exuberantly, in Dagmar Schultz’s new documentary, AUDRE LORDE: The Berlin Years.”

    On November 20 at 6:30 p.m. the Schomburg Center’s BGLA will screen A Litany for Survival. After the screening, join the filmmakers for a dialogue. Free.

    Register here and spread the word!

  7. Tiona M., Executive Producer/Director of Harriet’s Gun Media, is an award winning multi-media artist whose mission is to make the invisible, visible and to humanize her subjects. She (along with Lisa C. Moore) is currently in production with the Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project, and shared some information about the current phase of the project. “We finished round one of filming last fall and we are preparing for the next round of filming and fundraising.  We are currently creating a field research campaign to secure about 4-5 field researchers in different regions throughout the nation that can join us in illuminating black lesbian elder history on a regional scale as well as assist us with locating potential interview subjects for the film. The goal is to present a brief cut/extended trailer of the film early next year that will showcase the general aesthetic that we are striving to reach for the film as well as address the content that we will be exploring within the film. I want to present a high quality film at the end of the day and we also want the various communities that have supported us in financing the film to understand where they funds are going and how they have been used thus far. Events such as the one with the BGLA at the Schomberg allow us to have a check in with the community and hopefully will encourage more folks to join us in spreading the word about the film.”

    Tiona M., Executive Producer/Director of Harriet’s Gun Media, is an award winning multi-media artist whose mission is to make the invisible, visible and to humanize her subjects. She (along with Lisa C. Moore) is currently in production with the Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project, and shared some information about the current phase of the project.


    “We finished round one of filming last fall and we are preparing for the next round of filming and fundraising.  We are currently creating a field research campaign to secure about 4-5 field researchers in different regions throughout the nation that can join us in illuminating black lesbian elder history on a regional scale as well as assist us with locating potential interview subjects for the film. The goal is to present a brief cut/extended trailer of the film early next year that will showcase the general aesthetic that we are striving to reach for the film as well as address the content that we will be exploring within the film. I want to present a high quality film at the end of the day and we also want the various communities that have supported us in financing the film to understand where they funds are going and how they have been used thus far. Events such as the one with the BGLA at the Schomberg allow us to have a check in with the community and hopefully will encourage more folks to join us in spreading the word about the film.”

  8. Inaugurating the BGLA’s Ordinary People Film Series tomorrow night is the Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project by Tiona McClodden and Lisa C. Moore. The filmmakers will show clips from their project, as well as talk about the challenges of doing this groundbreaking work. Below, Moore illuminated a few of their struggles in making UBLEP a reality. Lisa C. Moore: Some of the challenges we’ve experienced are endemic to independent filmmaking: time, and money. But more challenging to me, as a writer/researcher, is the lack of lots of primary and secondary documentation. It’s not like there were magazines and news articles about black lesbians in the 1940s and ’50s. We have to rely on oral histories, and memory, and piece together an accurate documentation from there. We’re finding some rich primary documents, and so there’s a lot of work involved in documenting history from scratch, so to speak—and in a timely fashion, because many of the women we talk to have health issues, as do many older people in general. The trick is to document the stories, be respectful of elders’ time and energy, and treat it all with importance, while realizing that it’s got to be edited down in the end. Come meet Lisa and Tiona tomorrow night at the Schomburg Center. Please RVSP by going to this link. 

    Inaugurating the BGLA’s Ordinary People Film Series tomorrow night is the Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project by Tiona McClodden and Lisa C. Moore. The filmmakers will show clips from their project, as well as talk about the challenges of doing this groundbreaking work. Below, Moore illuminated a few of their struggles in making UBLEP a reality.

    Lisa C. Moore:

    Some of the challenges we’ve experienced are endemic to independent filmmaking: time, and money. But more challenging to me, as a writer/researcher, is the lack of lots of primary and secondary documentation. It’s not like there were magazines and news articles about black lesbians in the 1940s and ’50s. We have to rely on oral histories, and memory, and piece together an accurate documentation from there. We’re finding some rich primary documents, and so there’s a lot of work involved in documenting history from scratch, so to speak—and in a timely fashion, because many of the women we talk to have health issues, as do many older people in general. The trick is to document the stories, be respectful of elders’ time and energy, and treat it all with importance, while realizing that it’s got to be edited down in the end.

    Come meet Lisa and Tiona tomorrow night at the Schomburg Center. Please RVSP by going to this link.