Double feature Thursday!

Tongues Untied, directed by Marlon Riggs (1989)

This radical blend of documentary and performance defies the stigmas surrounding Black gay sexuality in the belief that, as long as shame prevails, liberation cannot be possible. Through music and dance, words and poetry and by candid, humorous, and heartbreaking interviews with queer African American men—Tongues Untied gives voice to what it means to live as an outsider in both a Black community rife with homophobia and a largely white gay subculture poisoned by racism.

Lovers Rock, directed by Steve McQueen (2020)

A monsoon of musical and sexual rapture bursts overhead in this film from director Steve McQueen, leaving condensation-sweat running down the walls and cinematic pleasure going through the roof. Taking place over a single evening at a West Indian house party in 1980s London, the dance floor ignites a constellation of sexual sparks in its indoor cosmos. Lovers Rock is a cine-tab of MDMA, which through continuous immersion gradually ascends to something like an out-of-body experience.