From experimental shorts and web series to Hollywood blockbusters and feminist porn, the work of African American lesbian filmmakers has made a powerful contribution to film history. But despite its importance, this work has gone largely unacknowledged by cinema historians and cultural critics. Assembling a range of interviews, essays, and conversations, Sisters in the Life tells a full story of African American lesbian media-making spanning three decades. In essays on filmmakers including Angela Robinson, Tina Mabry and Dee Rees; on the making of Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman (1996); and in interviews with Coquie Hughes, Pamela Jennings, and others, the contributors center the voices of black lesbian media makers while underscoring their artistic influence and reach as well as the communities that support them. Sisters in the Life marks a crucial first step in narrating the history and importance of these compelling yet unsung artists.
Contributors. Jennifer DeVere Brody, Jennifer DeClue, Raul Ferrera-Balanquet, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Thomas Allen Harris, Devorah Heitner, Pamela L. Jennings, Alexandra Juhasz, Kara Keeling, Candace Moore, Marlon Moore, Michelle Parkerson, Roya Rastegar, L. H. Stallings, Yvonne Welbon, Patricia White, Karin D. Wimbley
- Cover
- Contents
- Preface: To Be Transparent: Seeing Directions and Connections in Black Lesbian Film
- Introduction: The Sisters in the Life Archive Project
- Part I: 1986–1995
- Introduction
- 1. Birth of a Notion: Toward Black, Gay, and Lesbian Imagery in Film and Video
- 2. Narrating Our History: An Introduction
- 3. Narrating Our History: Selections
from a Dialogue among
Queer Media Artists from the African Diaspora
- 4. Construction of Computation and Desire: Introduction to Yvonne Welbon’s Interview with Pamela L. Jennings
- 5. Ruins and Desire: Interview with Pamela L. Jennings, July 27, 2012
- 6. the book of ruins and desire: Interactive Mechatronic Sculpture
- 7. A Cosmic Demonstration of Shari Frilot’s Curatorial Practice
- 8. Identity and Performance in Yvonne Welbon’s Remembering Wei-Yi Fang, Remembering Myself: An Autobiography
- Part II: 1996–2016
- Introduction
- 9. Producing Black Lesbian Media
- 10. Stereotypy, Mammy, and Recovery in Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman
- 11. Coquie Hughes: Urban Lesbian Filmmaker. Introduction to Yvonne Welbon’s Interview with Coquie Hughes
- 12. Stepping Out on Faith: Interview with Coquie Hughes, July 27, 2012
- 13. “Invite Me In!”: Angela Robinson at Hollywood’s Threshold
- 14. Shine Louise Houston: An Interstice of Her Own Making
- 15. From Rage to Resignation: Reading Tina Mabry’s Mississippi Damned as a Post–Civil Rights Response to Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam”
- 16. The Circuitous Route of Presenting Black Butch: The Travels of Dee Rees’s Pariah
- 17. Creating the World Anew: Black Lesbian Legacies and Queer Film Futures
- Acknowledgments
- Selected Bibliography
- Contributors
- Index
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