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“We are not going to go back into closets to bow our heads.” This unflappable assertion, pronounced by pioneering Black gay filmmaker Marlon Riggs in a 1992 interview for the groundbreaking LGBTQ+ television newsmagazine series, In the Life, remains as galvanizing a proclamation today as it was three decades ago. His reminder is an insistence, one that resonates through the converging identities inherent in that “we” of which he speaks: the “we” of queer folx, of people of color, of any marginalized group who knows silence cannot be the way forward. As film and television offer a mirror wherein one might encounter this “we,” it is necessary to turn to moving image archives to illuminate those reflections of the multifaceted identities found within. This decade-spanning program brings together short-form documentary, vérité docudrama and various newsmagazine segments for a glance into the intersecting identities of race, gender, family and sexual expression.
Intersections will begin with a live introduction from UCLA Film & Television Archive programmer K.J. Relth and Outfest UCLA Legacy Project manager Brendan Lucas.
Watch the program:
In the Life: Interview with Marlon Riggs (outtake excerpt) (May 9, 1992)
Approx. 5 min.
In the Life, Episode 1610: “Testimonial from Andy” segment (July 2007)
Approx. 2 min.
In the Life, Episode 1102: “The Murder of Fred Martinez” segment (November 2001)
Approx. 11 min.
Behind Every Good Man (c. 1967)
8 min. Director: Nikolai Ursin.
In the Life, Episode 402: “Family Album” segments (February 28, 1995)
6 min.
If She Grows Up Gay… (1983)
23 min. Director: Karen (Sloe) Goodman.
Total running time: approx. 56 min.
