This week and next, Campbell X, one of the most exciting LGBTQI filmmakers in the UK, is taking over Birds’ Eye View for PRIDE 2020 – he has curated a mixture of features and shorts that explore the Black Queer experience.
His curated selection falls under two strands; HOME and PASSING – this week you can explore HOME, followed by PASSING.
“I wanted to include shorts in this programme because as Black LGBTQIA filmmakers we very rarely get resources to make feature films about our Black queer lives. I wanted to also include men (both cis and trans) as well as women because when we say #BlackLivesMatter the urgency of the moment is to be united across gender, sexual orientation, class, disability and nation.” – Campbell X
Campbell X directed the debut award-winning queer urban romantic comedy feature film STUD LIFE (2012) which has just been featured as one of the Top 10 Best Black British Films in the Guardian and is available to watch on the BFI Player. Campbell directed and produced the short film DES!RE, and the documentary VISIBLE – which headlined the Scottish Queer Film Festival in December 2018. Campbell also directed the award-winning LGBTQ web series DIFFERENT FOR GIRLS, and is one of the directors of the transgender web series Spectrum London.
In 2013 Campbell was selected to be on the jury for Short films for Outfest LGBT film Festival in Los Angeles, the jury for Lili Award in MIX Copenhagen in 2015, the IRIS Prize, and Doc N Roll Festival and in 2018 in the Short Film Festival. Campbell is currently developing his second feature fiction film produced by Stella Nwimo. In 2015 Campbell was voted in the top 50 LGBTIQ people in the UK by the Independent on Sunday Pink List.
He is also the co-founder with Neelu Bhuman of Wahala Film Fund, a completion fund for short films by and about QTIPOC people.
SELECTION 1
FILMS AROUND THE THEME OF HOME
Homecoming, Brother to Brother and Atlantic is a Sea of Bones give an insight into the homelessness of our lives as Black queer people who challenge Black cis-heteronormativity in the ways we love, live and create work.
Topher Campbell’s Homecoming follows queer fine art photographer Ajamu’s journey home to Huddersfield to see his mother. Late for his train, he runs around Brixton yet takes time to give us a guided tour of the history of Black queer homes and places of rest in the neighborhood. This film is important in asking the question of where can Black queer people be safe. It is also an important historical document of one of the most provocative UK Black gay artists and photographers.
Brother to Brother the debut feature film by Rodney Evans is a tribute to the queer aspects of the Harlem Renaissance. Perry played beautifully and sexily by Anthony Mackie (Falcon in the Marvel Universe, Hurt Locker, Captain America) is thrown out of his home by his violent homophobic father. He befriends a homeless Black queer elder who turns out to be the poet Bruce Nugent. Bruce Nugent, Aaron Douglas, Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston started a queer, sex positive journal Fire!! in 1926, which gave the thumbs up to respectability politics. Fire!! lasted one issue due to poor sales and a hostile campaign by the “Talented Tenth” who thought it vulgar and would set back Black progress.
Atlantic is a Sea of Bones by Tourmaline for Day With(out) Art 2017 – a moving film about resistance. During the Transatlantic Slave trade during the horror that was the Middle Passage, the only home and freedom was at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Many African people jumped overboard rather than be kept captive. Atlantic is a Sea of Bones is a call to action to remember our queer Black and trans ancestors also chose to rebel and makes safer spaces to survive. Our clubs, the city, under bridges, our bodies become home.
Part 2 coming next week.
