 is an experimental super-short poetic film. ángel’s signature artistic method of blending together two film techniques (kinetic and montage), along with two forms of literature (poetry and monologue) brings to life the story that lies in between the lines of the poem. 

 depicts a story about the unspoken mutual desire between two Black lesbians that's only been expressed through flirtatious and seductive body language. Viewers are invited to journey alongside the narrator as they embark on a walk throughout the city to articulate the pining for their unnamed love interest, in an attempt to manifest an encounter between them meeting once again into the universe.

Desire

is a short animated music video celebrating trans joy, trans love, and trans existence. It's made using a combination of analogue and digital animation techniques, including 35mm ﬁlm photography, rotoscoping, and traditional frame by frame animation.

FLORESCENCE

Girlz to Men is a documentary about three transgender men who share their dynamic experiences via interviews.

Girlz to Men: A Documentary About Trans-Men

 trilogy, Emre Busse conspires with trans porn talent Jamal Phoenix to redeﬁne the desirable body outside of a hegemonic society’s normative restrictions and, because of the speciﬁc relationship that pornographic images have to their audience, fuck with a viewer’s assumed self-assurance as being a coherent sexual subject. 

Porn’s speciﬁcity as a particular genre of representation lies in its almost visceral appeal to the spectator’s body as it elicits immediate somatic response; Richard Dyer speaks of pornography’s ability to “move” the body. The spectator suddenly feels their body, which manifests itself as something distinct over which we do not have full control.
Pornography is not recognized by our intellect alone but, at least partly, perceived through bodily or emotional responses.


Thus, even the bodies of spectators that do not identify as gay might be moved upon encountering the scopophilic richness of Jamal Phoenix’s FTM body in action with other men: the body might move in ways that the mind did not anticipate. As a result of this disordering, or the apparent dissonance between mind and body that one possibly experiences, the genitals ultimately take oﬀ from binary sexed bodies and are merely immersed in a collective pursuit oriented towards the intensiﬁcation of pleasure.

Godasses - Part III: Jamal Phoenix

 follows a day in the life of a black French lesbian in San Francisco. Ifé loves women, but vows never to fall in love. As she extols the beauty of women in San Francisco, she slowly cruises the city's streets in her classic car. Her philosophy: "You can never experience too many women." This stylized short is both sex-positive and slick.

Ifé

Directed by two-time Grammy nominee D. Smith, 

 takes up a seemingly simple mantle — to present the stories of four Black transgender sex workers in New York and Georgia. Shot in striking black and white, the boldness of the facts of these women's lives and the earthquaking frankness they share complicate this enterprise, colliding the everyday with cutting social commentary and the excavation of long-dormant truths. Accessible for any audience, unfiltered, unabashed, and unapologetic, Smith and her subjects smash the trendy standard for authenticity, offering a refreshing rawness and vulnerability unconcerned with purity and politeness.

Kokomo City

 is a retro, dreamlike montage that tells the story of a man ﬂipping TV channels, othered by the world he is shown, who is visited by fragmented, monochrome visions of himself, free and full of joy.

Lifestyle

, a quick witted, funny short film, that explores hook-up culture amongst Black queer men in Britain. Lucas, a computer techie goes on an ordeal when he invites Theo around for what he thought would be no-strings-attached fun, but it takes an odd turn when his ex-girlfriend returns home early.


Chicago International Film Festival 2023 (Nominated for Gold Hugo), Aesthetica Film Festival 2023, Manchester Film Festival 2024, BFI Flare 2024, Toronto Inside Out Film Festival 2024, Brighton Rocks Film Festival 2024, TALAWA Firsts 2024, Kino Short Film Festival 2024, Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2024, Exit 6 Film Festival 2024, Dinard Film Festival, Queer Film Festival München, Way Out West, Bolton Film Festival 2024, British Urban Film Festival 2024, Earls Court Film Festival Norwich Film Festival 2024, LesGaiCineMad (Special Jury Mention), Warsaw's AfryKamera Festival (Audience Award), India's Chennai Rainbow Film Festival, Mardi Gras Film Festival, Australia and an RTS nomination for Best Short Film.

MAN>CODE

 explores the existence of Nigerian LGBT+ icon Area Scatter, vividly portraying the dual experiences of anxiety and the unyielding joy of embracing a radical identity. It draws inspiration from the life of Area Scatter to capture the experiences of Queer Nigerian students on Nigerian campuses, which are inadvertently microcosms of the oppressive Nigerian state that outlaws queer expression.. The live performance art presentation took place on Saturday, September 30, 2023, at the New Culture Studios in Ibadan.

OMOOGE KAMPUS

 is an exploration and call for Black people to escape the terms and identities created by western imperialism. Two lovers run away from Babylon, a subversive look at gender and its trappings within the Black diaspora.

Pandrog

 examines experiences of racism and sexism today, through the eyes of 3 trans men of colour.

Passing

Just when Mika was starting to feel at home in their own body, they find themselves caught between Simmi who’s sweet like sugar but ain’t a lesbian and Token Toni who loves a bitta bashment and only dates Black and Brown butches – how can they catch a break when straight women are like junk food?

Original beats collide with poetry and movement in this explosive autobiographical piece of storytelling in a ‘dynamic, witty and moving’ (The Scotsman) journey of sexuality, identity and self discovery. 

Arts Council England, Talawa and the Derby Theatre Sustained Theatre Fund in association with In Good Company and Tamasha.

This work is a live performance and unavailable online. 

Pink Lemonade 

Charting the eight-year run of Shakedown, a peripatetic black lesbian strip club in Los Angeles, director Leilah Weinraub attempts “to portray the before and after of a utopic moment.” Weinraub presents a world unto itself, shaped by the desires and pleasures of its community. Shot with the tenderness of a home movie, 

 captures the propulsive, dreamlike atmosphere of the club and achieves a stunning intimacy with its subjects.

Shakedown

Dale Michael is a successful business man with great friends. Dale is a trans man, living stealth, until a game of pickup basketball changes his life.
Starring Tajir S. Hawkins (MECCA from 

 is the story of an ordinary man... living an ordinary life... and THAT'S what makes him extraordinary.

Shirts vs Skins

In the past decade, independent cinema has seen an explosion of films that explore transgender issues. Many of those films, however, have elided issues of race in regard to trans communities of color. In light of this, 

STILL BLACK: A PORTRAIT OF BLACK TRANSMEN

 is a feature-length experimental documentary that explores the lives of six black transgender men living in the United States. 

Through the intimate discussions of their lives as artists, students, husbands, fathers, lawyers, and teachers, the film challenges traditional notions of Black masculinity, sexuality, and identity.


Presented as a collection of six short black-and-white films, each "mini-film" gives the impression of a one-on-one conversation with the character. The aesthetically provocative sections tell the personal stories of the men through multiple camera angles, experimental graphics, and an original trip-hop
score--each designed to supplement their individuality and personality.


This film does not claim to embody what it means to be Black, or transgender, or male. But what it does do is offer just a small piece of the larger experience of being a Black trans man. Most importantly, we hope that the stories in the film will inspire audience members to look beyond the negative portrayals and stereotypes of Black men that we are all bombarded with on a daily basis.

University of California TV interview with director

Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen

JJ is a 'Stud' Lesbian. Together with her best friend Seb, a gay pretty boy, they work as wedding photographers. When JJ falls in love with a beautiful diva, JJ and Seb's friendship is tested. JJ is forced to choose between her hot new lover and her best friend.

Stud Life

explores ‘channeling’, time travel, and remix. It sources from numerous archives to explore the ‘techno somatic’: healing practices of sound moving through body and body through sound. This channel special homage to ‘tektonik’, a dance style popular in the early/mid 2000’s, as a parallel to the evolution of Techno, a genre grounded in Black culture (the Detroit music scene in the 80’s) before taking on subsequent, globalized iterations.

Nick Cave’s Soundsuits (PBS NewsHour) | Youtube

Nick Cave: Forothermore (Guggenheim) | Youtube

Cybergoth Dance Party (gNarLy cEe) | Youtube

Tecktonik Dance Moves Compilation (David Vidal) | Youtube

Tecktonik vs. Shuffle Girls (juan oroszco) | Youtube

Yelle - A Cause Des Garcons (Chanson Française) | Youtube

Rapper HAITI BABY freestyle on Real 92.3 LA | Instagram

DJ Edan mixing Blue Note record | Instagram

Personal footage screen recorded on iPhone 13 and sourced from Facebook Archives (2009, 2012)

TECH[TON]IK

This pioneering documentary filmed in NYC from 1997-2004 follows a group of "Aggressives," or "AG's" - masculine presenting and/or identifying - queer people of color who were assigned female at birth. It explores their dreams, secrets and deepest fears as well as their social spaces like the "ballroom" and club scene.


Ultimately the film focuses on the humanity of the subjects while attempting to unravel evolving terms around gender definition.

The Aggressives

This 5:25 short explores the interpersonal processing that occurs usually alone. The act of self-surveillance has allowed me to reﬂect on and embrace aspects of my identity I’ve been hesitant to acknowledge. Curiosity has steered this process and for that, I honor what has been discovered.
These recordings are a form of liberation for Trina.


The Quiet One

 is a portrait of anger as a product of Black ecology. This essay-film explores the eco-geography of rice cultivation and the life cycle of the fly, both of which are indelibly linked to Black life. Anger is used to trace the lineage of rice, from the transatlantic slave trade to the 2022 rice shortage in Liberia.

Tillage & Fury

An utterly fascinating, beautifully crafted exploration of the world of drag kings—women who dress, perform and/or live as men. 

Shot over a period of several years, we enter into the intimate lives of the film's subjects, Drag King pioneer Diane Torr, garbed as her alter ego Danny King, German performance artist Bridge Markland and in London, Del LaGrace Volcano a photographer whose startling images take us into a subculture of “new men” who experiment with male hormones.

Venus Boyz

Volana (Moon in Malagasy) is a Black Transmasculine person who parties excessively to avoid feeling their emotional and physical pain. One night, when they are about to join their friends, they get stuck in another dimension where they are overwhelmed to meet TIA, a gorgeous and flamboyant Spirit. Their encounter makes them experience a whirlpool of emotions and an interdimensional healing dance.

Categories

Black Experiences