
"Last year in the summer, I was speaking to Kings-Lee Rose in my living room in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, about my transition. The drastic shift in social perception is quite destabilizing and ultimately isolating, because there aren't many people I can turn to who might have some understanding of what this shift could feel like. I'm 41, so the shift is drastic. Everything has changed, but everything is the same all at once. Kings-Lee then shared candidly his truth in his transition, and with his permission, I recorded the conversation. I took the recording and felt inspired to compose music around it. Over the course of a month, I used my iPhone to shoot slow-motion footage of my life on tour, as well as intimate moments with loved ones in my Queer and Trans community in Brooklyn..." - TYGAPAW
Director
Writer
Status
Released
Original Language
EN

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.

An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.