Brian Freeman

A young black lesbian filmmaker probes into the life of The Watermelon Woman, a 1930s black actress who played 'mammy' archetypes.

Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.

A collage of erotic images and a call to arms, with a feverish hip-hop energy that celebrates the lives of African American men.

Jewelle: A Just Vision traces the nodes of social movements from Civil Rights to Marriage Equality. It reveals radical Black and Indigenous feminist networks and thought that could shape what is to come. It drinks deeply from the art and activism of the incomparable Jewelle Gomez, Ioway & African American, Wampanoag, and Cape Verdean lesbian elder. Her life and work replenish humanity with fierce hope as her power swells into the world, from histories of Massasoit and her great-grandmother’s buckskin dress, queer Black ancestors, and slavery-era vampires to starry regenerative futures.

After the Stonewall riots and at the height of the gay liberation movement in America, an entire generation were busy celebrating their newfound emancipation, unaware of an impending epidemic. A disease that seemed determined to wipe out an entire generation of gay men, was largely ignored by politicians and the mainstream media. Gaetan Dugas was a French-Canadian flight attendant, who offered to help early scientific research into the origins of AIDS. An unfortunate series of events followed and he would be vilified as Patient Zero, the man who gave us AIDS.

Now known internationally as the world's first "gay hometown," San Francisco's Castro District was a quiet, working-class neighborhood of European immigrants only a few decades ago. In this documentary, the story of the Castro's transformation is told by those who lived it, young and old, straight and gay. It's a tale of social upheaval, exuberant street culture, political assassination, and the inspiring coming-of-age of an entire community an ongoing saga even today.