While visiting the San Francisco Bay Area this past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful screening of four short films about Black queer motherhood. The even was hosted by Sistah Sinema, a multi-city network for Queer Women of Color cinema. Learn more and watch one of the films (from 1983!) below.
Sistah Sinema was founded in Seattle in 2011 by Isis Asare, and now holds monthly screenings in 15 cities around the U.S. and in Kingston, Jamaica, with plans to expand further. They select and pay for rights to the movies, while local affiliate directors secure the venues and do local marketing. (If you’re interested in bringing Sistah Sinema to your city, click here.) They are also hoping to launch an online video streaming service soon (but the in-person discussions after the films offer a compelling reason to show up in person, if they’re in your city).
Not all of their films are about motherhood, but in a recent interview with Black Lesbian Love Lab, Asare explained why she wanted to cover the topic: “Black, queer mothers are warriors, but their stories are rarely told in mainstream media.”
The four films touch on issues such as single motherhood, economic disparities, homophobia, and marriage equality. Two are documentaries and two fiction — a great mix hinting at just how many more stories are out there waiting to be told. I liked them all — and enjoyed meeting Asare, who is gracious and welcoming and clearly committed to this work.
Alas, there is only one more screening of the motherhood films (in Richmond, Virginia this Thursday) before next month’s slate takes over — but I’m sure the new films will be equally interesting. Asare said, however, that I could share links and embed the motherhood films here, if available online.
Let’s start with If She Grows Up Gay, by Karen (Sloe) Goodman, a 22-minute documentary short about a young, working-class mother, her two-year-old daughter, and her partner. It came out in 1983 — two years before the more well-known (and also excellent) early documentary on lesbian families, Choosing Children (about which more here). If She Grows Up Gay adds yet more proof that LGBT parenting isn’t as newfangled as some may think — and that our community consists of more than just affluent White couples deciding to start a family together. I’d love to see the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project restore this one (the sound quality isn’t great, and the image quality could probably benefit as well).
The other three films are:
- Truth. Be. Told: StaceyAnn Chin is an interview by Katina Parker with spoken-word poet and performing artist StaceyAnn Chin, in which Chin discusses growing up in Jamaica and being a single, queer, Black mother now living in New York. It’s available in full online.
- Crossover, by Tina Mabry and Morgan Stiff, is a dystopian film set in 2028, in a world rigidly separated by economic status. It asks how far a mother would go to give her children a better life.
- Brooklyn’s Bridge to Jordan [trailer only] also by Mabry and Stiff, tells the fictional, current day story of a mother struggling to maintain a relationship with her nonbiological teenage son after the death of her partner.
I hope you enjoy them — and please consider going to a future Sistah Sinema event if there’s one near you!