shape_SHIFT: Black Queer Short Films

By expanding visual articulations of fluidity through the medium of film as seen through time, story, and representation, shape_SHIFT is an open sentence on being Black and queer. Taking a wide-angle view on these themes, the program includes works by jaamil olawale kosoko, Keisha Rae Witherspoon, bree gant, GLOR1A & biarritzzz, and others. (program approx. 82 mins., DCP)

Program lineup

Diaspora Mixtapes
(Ima Iduozee, 2019, 13 mins.)

“Diaspora Mixtapes is a series of digital portraits that celebrate the diversity of black cultural identity in the contemporary African Diaspora. Activists, artists, poets, and musicians share and explore ideas around black life, futurity, fugitivity, (de)colonialism, and kinship. The extensive archive consists of autobiographies, personal narratives, and video documentations that recognize and acknowledge an array of experiences that stretch out across the diaspora, with a special focus on the Nordic countries in Volume 1.”—Ima Iduozee

otherlogue iv
(bree gant, 2019, 5 mins.)

“otherlogue iv is a screen dance meditation presenting choreographic portraits that explore family history and hoodrat things with friends. The film is directed, shot, and edited by bree gant and was created in collaboration with artists Celia Benvenutti, Hanniyah Cross, and Raven Whitney Joel, with appearances by Dr. Leon Gant and Nahimana Aponi. The soundtrack features music by Dave Gulley.”—bree gant

Copper
(marlo henry magdalene, 2017, 8:08 mins.)

“In Copper, I explore the transgressive space of Black memory, social death, intercellular trauma, and the underbelly of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. I dance with and around my muses as I allow my body to follow them before my eyes do. I allow the muscles of my toes to stiffen, extending this tightness to my core, as I engage in a choreographed dance of an exchange of power. Through this movement I develop language for a third space where Blackness operates outside of surveillance; in this third space I reimagine the ontological existence of the Black American experience.”—marlo henry magdalene (formerly known as summer fucking mason)

Heaven Reaches Down to Earth
(Tebogo Malebogo, 2020, 10 mins.)

“After Tau comes to a realization about their sexuality, it sets in motion a cascade of thoughts and emotions in Tumelo—nothing will ever be the same between them.”—Tebogo Malebogo

The Death of Tomorrow
(GLOR1A & biarritzzz, 2021, 3:03 mins.)

“The Death of Tomorrow is an audiovisual experiment of sonic collision and digital excitement, as biarritzzz and GLOR1A enter the deep web of intertwined missed memories and infinitudes. We travel through time in a narrated tale of predictable dystopia. Things we already feel, feelings we already miss. It is an invocation of strength and a lullaby for bodies asleep as they’re living only in a digital world.”—biarritzzz

The work was supported by the Novas Frequências Festival, Amplify D.A.I. (Digital Arts Initiative), and the British Council. Music production by GAIKA.

Across, Beyond, and Over
(Brit Fryer and Noah Schamus, 2019, 11:34 mins.)

“A hybrid documentary about two trans men who used to date in middle school reconnecting 10 years later to develop a narrative film about their past. Through this process, they are forced to reconcile the differences in how they want to portray themselves, their relationship, and their own trans identities.”—Brit Fryer and Noah Schamus

T
(Keisha Rae Witherspoon, 2019, 14 mins.)

“A film crew follows three grieving participants of Miami’s annual T Ball, where folks assemble to model R.I.P. T-shirts and innovative costumes designed in honor of their dead.”—Keisha Rae Witherspoon

Chameleon (A Visual Album)
(jaamil olawale kosoko and Ima Iduozee, 2022, 21:15 mins.)

“Chameleon (A Visual Album) is a performance film adaption from a live work that never premiered. It explores the fugitive realities and shapeshifting demands of surviving at the intersection of Blackness, gender fluidity, and queerness in contemporary America.”—jaamil olawale kosoko

The Artist Residency Award–supported project also screens in The Box June 10–August 31.

See the complete Say Gay lineup.

Say Gay: LGBTQ+ Pride on Film is presented in conjunction with Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage, an interdisciplinary exhibition curated by jaamil olawale kosoko that amplifies Black feminist voices in contemporary art and performance. Click here to view the complete Portal For(e) lineup.