QCC #29: MARLON RIGGS DOUBLE FEATURE
Genre
Documentary, LGBTQ+
Language
VOA
Duration
141
Rating
About
In September, QCCMTL spotlights the essential work of Marlon Riggs with a double feature of TONGUES UNTIED (1989, 55min) and BLACK IS... BLACK AIN’T (1994, 88 min).
A major figure in queer cinema, Marlon Riggs created a space where the intimate becomes political, where the body, the voice, and desire refuse to conform to dominant norms. His work remains strikingly relevant today, both in its form and in the questions it raises.
Two films, two gestures, one shared urgency: to speak, to show, to affirm identities long pushed to the margins, at the intersection of queerness and Black experience.
With TONGUES UNTIED, Riggs delivers a radical and deeply personal work, blending poetry, performance, and testimony to give voice to a community too often silenced: Black queer men. The film dismantles stereotypes, celebrates desire, and transforms speech into an act of resistance.
A few years later, BLACK IS... BLACK AIN’T widens that lens. Completed shortly before his death, the film explores tensions, contradictions, and exclusions within the Black community itself. Through an approach that is both intimate and essayistic, Riggs asks: who gets to belong, and under what conditions?
Programming these two works together creates a dialogue between two moments in the same trajectory, from affirmation to self-interrogation, from speaking out to collective reflection.
Two powerful, necessary films that continue to resonate, and to unsettle.
Special event rate: $20
Ciné-cartes are not accepted for this screening.
Poster by artist Hicham Illoussamen.
Directed by
Marlon Riggs
Country
United States
Version
Original English Version