Queer, Trans, Abolitionist, and Indigenous Cinema coming to you
Bring these films to your community! Meet us in Brazil!
Dear friends,
I first started the email list that evolved into this substack twenty years ago, sending updates from New Orleans post-Katrina. Recently, these emails focus more on films, but it is still about changing the narrative, and building a better world. Some of you have followed this list from the beginning, and some recently subscribed. Thank you to everyone who has chosen to follow this journey.
Bring Queer Cinema to your Community
I’m thrilled to announce the release of Cockroach, a bold, genre-blending short film exploring themes of sex, survival, connection, and identity through an unflinching, darkly funny lens. The film stars John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig & The Angry Inch, Shortbus) and is written, directed by, and starring Justice Singleton, and co-directed by Liliana Padilla. We recently won the Audience Award at New Orleans Film Festival, and Huffington Post called it “funny, tender and deliberately hard to categorize, a love letter to both sex and discomfort as sites of transformation.”
The film, with its themes of queer, trans, and sex work politics, was made as a tool for bringing community together. Antigravity Magazine called it “a dialogue on how queer folks can cultivate human connection.” Check out this instagram review of the premiere to see how special a Cockroach screening can be, and then email grassrootsresponses@gmail.com to bring the film to your community.
Space to Breathe Coming to Your City!
A recent review of Space to Breathe says it “offer(s) a light in what feels like an endless tunnel.” We are continuing to bring this Afrofuturist, Abolitionist, hybrid science fiction/documentary to communities everywhere, with recent screenings at Amherst Massachusetts, Centre Film Festival, and a screening in Atlanta coming up on December 19. We want to come to you! Email grassrootsresponses@gmail.com to bring the film to your city.
Powerlands is Coming to Brazil!
Three years after its release, Powerlands continues to travel to communities around the world. Later this month, we will screen the film in Brazil, starting with a screening November 30 in São Paulo at Al Janiah with screenings in December in Rio and Salvador. Please let us know if you have any contacts in Brazil!
Here are more links:
Corporate Prison Reform will not Keep us Safe - a short film on organizing in Los Angeles.
36+ beautiful films by and about Communists, Anarchists, and other revolutionaries.
A Musical Indictment of the Cash-Bail System (this film is not by me, I’m just a fan).
Democracy Now interview on the 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Buy a copy of Floodlines from Haymarket Books or listen on audiobook or Spotify.