American Gurl: Seeking...

In person: Post-screening conversation with filmmaker Janicza Bravo.

In person: Introduction by filmmaker Natalie Jasmine Harris.

Palace Bryant (Diamond Stingily), a Black artist on the cusp of graduating from a prestigious MFA program, endures one final absurd day of microaggressions, pretentious critiques, and overwhelming expectations before embarking on a chaotic, drug-fueled odyssey. Martine Syms’s The African Desperate is a razor-sharp, satirical fever dream that dissects the contradictions of the contemporary art world, capturing the existential exhaustion of being both fetishized and dismissed within elite creative spaces, making it a hilarious yet unflinching meditation on race, class, and survival in the avant-garde.

Preceded by Women's Work 

A documentation of the creative process of Simone Leigh, a Brooklyn-based sculptor and video artist. 

Adapted from a note by the filmmaker. 

DIRECTED BY: Ja’Tovia Gary. 2012. 6 min. USA. Color. English. DCP.

In person: Post-screening conversation with filmmakers Nisha Ganatra and Fawzia Mirza.

Spike Lee’s Girl 6 follows an aspiring actress who, after struggling to find success, takes a job as a phone sex operator. The film resonates with the thematic and stylistic concerns of playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, known for her experimental narratives and sharp interrogation of Black womanhood. Her framework deepens the film’s engagement with identity, performance, and agency. Infused with Prince’s evocative soundtrack and shot with Lee’s signature vibrancy, Girl 6 interrogates the fine line between self-expression and exploitation in an industry that thrives on both.

Preceded by Bounded Intimacy 

Part of the It’s Just Business, Baby trilogy of Super 8mm shorts, Bounded Intimacy examines the histories of various forms of body labor across the Chelsea and Tribeca districts that were renowned as a site for sex work, sex clubs, and illicit sexual activity.

Adapted from a note by the filmmaker.

DIRECTED BY: Ayanna Dozier. 2024. 6 min. USA. Color. DCP.

In person: post-screening conversation with screenwriter Troy Byer.