Join us Thursday, June 24, 2021 as Third World Newsreel and Family Pictures USA along with the Documentary Forum at CCNY presents a special Pride event.

Filmmakers Shari Frilot and Thomas Allen Harris and author Jafari Allen will talk about the historic 1995 film and conference Black Nations/Queer Nations? and its meaning for today. This film was edited by the late, great Lewis Erskine.

Black Nations/Queer Nations? is an experimental documentary chronicling the March 1995 groundbreaking conference that brought together an array of dynamic scholars, activists, and cultural workers including Essex Hemphill, Kobena Mercer, Barbara Smith, Urvashi Vaid, and Jacqui Alexander to interrogate the economic, political, and social situations of diasporic lesbians, gay men, bisexual, and transgender peoples.

The video brings together the highlights of the conference and draws connections between popular culture and black gay media production of the time. The participants discuss various topics: Black and Queer identity, the shortcomings of Black nationalism, and homophobia in Black communities. Drawing upon works such as Isaac Julien's "The Attendant" and Jocelyn Taylor's "Bodily Functions," this documentary illuminates the importance of this historic conference for Black LGBTQIA+SGL people.

The film will stream from June 21-25 and on Thursday, June 24 at 6 PM ET, filmmaker Shari Frilot will be in conversation with maker Thomas Allen Harris and author Jafari Allen, along with other guests to discuss that conference and time, and its connection to the present. This program is cosponsored by the Documentary Forum at CCNY.

With your RSVP, you will get a link to the film and to the Zoom talk on June 24 at 6 PM ET.