two people sitting in grass
Screening

Love in Focus: Black Queer Rhapsody (SOLD OUT)

Thursday, Jul 25, 2024
7:30 pm—9:30 pm
Tickets $15

Overview

A BEAM OF LIGHT ON THE VIBRANT LANDSCAPE OF QUEER LA FILM

Anchored by love as a devotional practice of collective liberation and inspired by the work and impact of the special exhibition Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, The Broad is proud to present Love in Focus: Black Queer Rhapsody, a program of short films and filmmaker Q&A as part of the Queer Rhapsody summer film series. The program celebrates the transformative power of queer authorship through an immersive collection of short films celebrating Black queer lives. From documentaries on vibrant drag queens and Black elders to magical coming of age journeys and stories of transformative love, these films weave a rhapsody of resilience and authentic connections. 

Queer Rhapsody, a community-led film series, centers the joy, healing, and narrative reinvention of contemporary LGBTQIA+ cinema. Showcasing a kaleidoscope of offerings: from features poised to achieve cult status, short-form experimental storytelling as alchemical guide, vanguard documentaries blazing a path for narrative change, and international films primed to accompany you on your next journey of self-discovery. Created to connect the vibrant Los Angeles queer film community by centering liberatory narratives, 15 shorts and feature screening programs will be anchored by five iconic venues and driven by a dedicated independent queer programming team, this city-wide collaboration aims to kindle a bright, hot summertime celebration of queer voices at its heart in service to belonging and igniting creative community connection across Los Angeles. 

Organized by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, with support from the Andrew J. Kuehn, Jr. Foundation and the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation. Curated by an independent programming team and presented in collaboration with community venues The American Cinematheque, Egyptian and Los Feliz 3; The Broad; UCLA Film & Television Archive, Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer; and Vidiots Foundation.

View the full schedule for the Queer Rhapsody film series at www.queerrhapsodyfilmseries.com

About The Films:

How to Raise a Black Boy 
Directed by Justice Jamal Jones | 2020 | 13 min 
Four boys journey through a fantastical world of black boyhood, queer identity, and fraternity in a modern reimagining of the fairy tale genre.

MnM
Directed By Twiggy Pucci Garçon | 2023 | 15 min 
An exuberant portrait of chosen sisters Mermaid and Milan, two emerging runway divas in the drag ballroom community. Celebrating their joy, siblinghood, and unapologetic personas, the film explores the power and beauty of being nonbinary in a community that prizes gender ‘realness’.

(dey/dem): a choreo-doc
Directed by NOVA CYPRESS BLACK | 2023 | 17 min 
An experimental documentary that illuminates Black non-binary folks in the American Souf & their connection to the nearly erased history of gender expansiveness within the African diaspora.

Winter Insect, Summer Flower
Directed by Tee Park & Gbenga Komolafe | 2021 | 11 min 
This story of a trans woman's journey of love, loss, and redemption through the seasons uses a circular narrative to explore the ever-evolving body.

Sis
Directed by Miranda Haymon | 2023 | 12 min 
In this surrealist black comedy, a woman's curiosity in her ex-crush's new girlfriend complicates after their cosmic meet cute at a Brooklyn rooftop party.

Merman
Directed by Sterling Hampton IV | 2023 | 12 min 
A 60-year-old Black Queer man talks about his life as an Emergency Nurse, Leather Enthusiast, Civil Rights Advocate, and Husband.  

 

A Q&A moderated by Natalie Jasmine Harris, Queer Rhapsody Associate Programmer, will follow the screening: 

Sterling Hampton (Director, Merman

NOVA CYPRESS BLACK (Director, dey/dem

Tee Park (Co-Director, Winter Insect, Summer Flower

 

Image credit: Still from Winter Insect, Summer Flower, directed by Tee Park & Gbenga Komolafe, 2021, 11 min


know before you go

Tickets include one-time access to The Broad, including Mickalene Thomas: All About Love and our third-floor collection galleries during regular museum hours between Sunday, July 21 and Sunday, July 28, 2024. The museum will be closed when this program ends; please plan your visit accordingly. 

Tickets to this event do not include access to Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013), and must be booked separately.

For information on our current health and safety policies, visit Know Before You Go & FAQ. Visitor policies are subject to change. 

Sold out

Biographies

Justice Jamal Jones

Justice Jamal Jones

Justice Jamal Jones is a NYC-based filmmaker, actor, and writer. As a Black Queer Alchemist, they integrate Black Feminist Queer theory alongside Black diasporic Spirituality into their work. Their film How To Raise a Black Boy was a reimagining of Jones’ childhood, linking their boyhood to their trans/non-binary identity. 

Photo courtesy of the artist

Twiggy Pucci Garçon

Twiggy Pucci Garçon

Twiggy Pucci Garçon is an activist, creative director, event producer, culture curator, performance artist, and runway trainer. Twiggy has worked at True Colors United for nearly a decade, protecting rights for young people experiencing homelessness. They are also the Overall Overseer for the Legendary International House of Comme des Garçon.

Photo courtesy of the artist

NOVA CYPRESS BLACK

NOVA CYPRESS BLACK

NOVA CYPRESS BLACK writes deir name in all caps as a reminder to take up space as a Black trans gender-expansive lighthouse. NOVA was a Outfest Screenwriting Lab, Hillman Grad Mentorship Lab, and Film Independent Project Involve fellow as well as a Staff Writer on The L Word: Generation Q. 

Photo courtesy of the artist

Tee Park

Tee Park

Tee Jaehyung Park is a transgender writer, director, and actor who migrated from Seoul when at the age of 12. Park’s directorial debut, The Pupal Stage, screened at multiple festivals including NewFest and NFTTY. In 2021, Park participated in the Disruptors Fellowship for marginalized television writers. Her second directorial effort, Winter Insect, Summer Flower, premiered at Slamdance in 2022. 

Photo courtesy of the artist

Gbenga Komolafe

Gbenga Komolafe

Gbenga Komolafe is a Nigerian artist currently based in Los Angeles working across photo, video, textile, and sculpture—often exploring their intersections. They have directed various experimental and commercial video projects. Winter Insect, Summer Flower, which Gbenga wrote and co-directed, premiered at Slamdance 2022. 

Photo courtesy of the artist

Miranda Haymon

Miranda Haymon

Miranda Haymon is a Princess Grace Award-winning director and writer originally from Boston, MA. Miranda has developed and staged theater work with The Tank, NYTW, Roundabout, and more, and served as visiting faculty at Fordham, Dartmouth, and Sarah Lawrence, among others. They recently wrote Dylan Mulvaney’s 365 Days of Girlhood Live! 

Photo courtesy of the artist

Sterling Hampton IV

Sterling Hampton IV

Sterling Hampton IV is a film director, photographer, producer, writer, and composer from Southern California. He is the head of Clash of the Artistic Minds. His films, Kylie and Merman, have screened at Sundance, Tribeca, and Urbanworld. He has directed music videos for The Black Eyed Peas, Will.i.am, and Mario. 

Photo courtesy of the artist

Queer Rhapsody Film Series Curators

Queer Rhapsody Film Series Curators

Martine McDonald, Queer Rhapsody Series Creative Director and Senior Programmer  
Martine Joelle McDonald is a film curator and teaching artist. With over a decade of experience at the intersection of the social impact storytelling and anti-bias media arts, she champions historically excluded artists to transform industry disparities in narrative and documentary film pipelines. Founder of Practice Wonder, a creative studio and narrative change consulting practice, her curatorial and educational endeavors platform stories rooted in joy as resistance, underrepresented childhoods, the politics of care, and the cultivation and practice of wonder. Most recently, Martine served as the Director of Artist Development at Outfest, leading professional development initiatives to empower emerging talent. Her narrative arts collaborations have included Tribeca Institute, Firelight Media, National Endowment for the Arts and GLAAD. Queer Rhapsody is a devotional practice of bearing witness to the kaleidoscope of reverence, reinvention and curiosity that drives the heart of queer life.  

 

Natalie Jasmine Harris, Queer Rhapsody Series Associate Programmer  
Natalie Jasmine Harris is a Black queer filmmaker and Associate Programmer with Queer Rhapsody. Her short film, GRACE, premiered at The 2024 Sundance Film Festival, and her 2022 NYU thesis film, PURE, received The DGA Student Film Award and was acquired by HBO. She is currently developing PURE into a feature-length film of the same name with producer Avril Speaks. Natalie has participated in artist programs with Film at Lincoln Center, GLAAD, SFFILM, Outfest, and more. To Natalie, Queer Rhapsody is a necessary reflection of the joy, resilience, and tenderness that we hold close to as a community, no matter the times.

 

Moi Santos, Queer Rhapsody Series Senior Programmer  
Moi Santos is the Manager for the Equity, Impact, and Belonging Program at Sundance Institute. In this role, Moi works across all Sundance Institute Programs to deepen engagement with, and support of, storytellers and audiences across ethnicities, genders, abilities, sexual orientations, and geographic regions. She is the founder of the Trans Possibilities Intensive, an incubator program that provides a supportive environment for transgender artists of color to work on their projects, sharpen their craft, develop community and challenge the obstacles that continue to exclude transgender artists of color. She holds a degree in Ethnic Studies with a concentration in visual culture and gender studies from the University of California, Berkeley.  

 

Daniel Crooke, Queer Rhapsody Series Senior Programmer  
Daniel Crooke (he/him) is a film programmer in Los Angeles whose core work aims to amplify narrative and documentary filmmakers from around the globe and connect their work with audiences. At present, he is a Senior Programmer at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Previously, he worked as the Senior Programmer at Outfest, where he held various programming roles including lead Shorts Programmer from 2016–2023. He has served on festival juries including the Nashville Film Festival and Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, and is proud to have taken posts across many leading arts organizations in the United States such as the Atlanta Film Festival, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, Overlook Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, AFI Fest, NewFest, Palm Springs ShortFest, and TCM Classic Film Festival.