Celebrating Black Queer Films
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
This Sunday, Leeds Queer Film Festival hosts a evening of films that centre queer black lives. Scheduled as an precursor to Leeds Pride, the online event features a selection of three short films, leading up to Janelle Monaé’s mid-length Dirty Computer — part music video, part narrative dystopian fiction, the film jumps off from Monaé’s album of the same name.
The pay as you feel event takes the form of an online watch party via Metastream, and while Dirty Computer is definitely the main event, the shorts sound every bit as intriguing.
Inkanyezi Yobusuke (Night Star) is billed as a “sweet (and sometimes cheesy AF)” Zulu tale of dreams and desires. Exploring blackness and gender non-conformity from gal-dem Magazine is a documentary following Travis Alabanza returning to their hometown of Bristol to talk to writer and historian Edson Burton, co-founder of Kiki – Bristol’s first visible community for QTIPOC. While Nikolai Ursin’s 1966 Behind Every Good Man provides a glimpse into the life of an African-American trans woman.
