$10 Suggested Donation For All Screenings

6:00 Cocktails

7:00 Discussion: Kirk Shannon-Butts, Michael Henry Adams

7:30 Screening

Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life
Robert Levi,1999, 90 min.
Today, historians and scholars agree that Billy Strayhorn remains one of the most under-recognized American composers in history. Born in 1915, Strayhorn chose to live openly as a gay black man. It was perhaps this decision—and his lifelong devotion to Ellington—which contributed to his near anonymity as a major American composer. While Ellington is arguably the most influential and celebrated jazz composer of the 20th century, Strayhorn is unrecognized. Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life poses answers to the question of who was Billy Strayhorn, and why is he still relatively unknown?>

Portrait of Jason
Shirley Clarke, 1967, 105 min.
Interview with Jason Holliday aka Aaron Payne, house boy, would be cabaret performer, and self proclaimed hustler giving one man's gin-soaked pill-popped, view of what it was like to be black and gay in 1960's America.
Q&A with Director Steve Watson

Storme: Lady of the Jewel Box
Dir. Michelle Parkerson, 1987, 21 min.
"It ain't easy…being green" is the favorite expression of Storme DeLarverie, a woman whose life flouted prescriptions of gender and race. During the 1950's and 60's she toured the black theatre circuit as a mistress of ceremonies and the sole male impersonator of the legendary Jewel Box Revue, America's first integrated female impersonation show and forerunner of La Cage aux Folles. Storme herself emerges as a remarkable woman, who came up during hard times but always "kept a touch of class." Storme was also a witness to the Stonewall Rebellion 40 years ago and is a founding member of the Stonewall Veterans Association.

Panel TBA

Brother Outsider, The Life of Bayard Rustin
Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer, 2002, 83 min.
This meditation on the parallels between racism and homophobia illuminates the life and work of Bayard Rustin, a visionary activist and strategist who has been called the "unknown hero" of the civil rights movement. Daring to live as an openly gay man during the fiercely homophobic 1940s, 50s and 60s, Brother Outsider reveals the price that Rustin paid for his openness, chronicling both the triumphs and setback of his remarkable 60-year career.

Panel:
• Dirs. Bennett Singer and Nancy Kates
• Walter Naegle, Rustin's partner until his passing in 1987 at 75
• Ernest Green, The Little Rock Nine
• Adam Green, Historian, Author of "Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1955"
• Moderator: Michael Henry Adams

Brother Outsider, The life of Bayard Rustin

Homo Harlem: A Film Retrospective

5:30 pm Walking Tour

7:30 pm
Paris is Burning
Jennie Livingston, 1990, 78 min.
Many consider Paris Is Burning to be an invaluable document of the end of the "Golden Age" of New York City drag balls, as well as a thoughtful exploration of race, class, and gender in America.

9:30 pm Afterparty at Billy's Black*

*Complete package (walking tour, screening and after party) cost is $50.00
Contact- homoharlemtour@aol.com
60 person limit on tickets so get them while you can!
Tickets for the screening only can be purchased at the Maysles Cinema the night of.

Homo Harlem: A Film Retrospective

5:30 pm Walking Tour

7:30 pm
Looking For Langston
Isaac Julien, 1988, 45 min.
A black and white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually.

James Baldwin: Witness
Angie Corcetti, 2003, 60 min.
A minister's son from Harlem, James Baldwin moved to Greenwich Village and began writing essays for left-wing journals. With the success of his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and dozens of non-fiction works, Baldwin became an international voice on American Black life in the 1950s and 60s. A look at this Black American Gay icon’s life.

9:30pm Dinner at Miss Maude's Spoonbread Too*

*Complete package (walking tour, screening and dinner at Chez Lucien) cost is $50.00
Contact- homoharlemtour@aol.com

Homo Harlem: A Film Retrospective

11:30 am Brunch at Chez Lucien*

1:00 pm Walking Tour

3:00 pm
M&M SMITH: For Posterity's Sake
Heather Lyons, 1996, 57 min
Morgan and Marvin Smith, twin brothers and prolific African American artists, boldly moved from Kentucky to New York in 1933 to pursue artistic careers. By 1937 they had opened a photo studio next door to Harlem's renowned Apollo Theatre. Thus began 50-year-long careers as still and motion picture photographers, painters and sound recordists. This story is richly visualized through the Smiths' photos, films and paintings and poignantly told by Morgan and Marvin Smith and friends such as Eartha Kitt.

Clip of Short Conversation with Marvin Smith
40 min.

*Complete package (walking tour, screening and brunch at Chez Lucien) cost is $45.00. Contact- homoharlemtour@aol.com

AFTER THE MOVIE:
Conversation with filmmaker Fred Barney Taylor.

Reception hosted by Café Saint Germain, JTE Spirits and Harlem Brewing Company.

As I Remember It: Portrait of Dorothy West
Dir. Salem Mekuria,1991, 56 min.
This intimate portrait of writer Dorothy West explores the forgotten role of women in the Harlem Renaissance. From the perspective of her 83 years, West relates her memories of growing up African American, privileged and enchanted by literature.

Flag Wars
Dirs. Linda Goode Bryant & Laura Poitras, 2003, 87 min.
Shot over a four-year period, Linda Goode Bryant’s and Laura Poitras’ Flag Wars is a poignant and very personal look at a community in Columbus, OH, undergoing gentrification. What happens when gay white homebuyers move into a working-class black neighborhood? As the new residents restore the beautiful but run-down homes, black homeowners must fight to hold onto their community and heritage. The inevitable clashes expose prejudice and self-interest on both sides, as well as the common dream to have a home to call your own. Winner of the Jury Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival, Flag Wars is a candid, unvarnished portrait of privilege, poverty and local politics taking place across America.

AFTER THE MOVIE:
“The first round of gentrification is carried out by artists and gay and lesbian folks” – debate, discuss. Panelists TBA.

AFTER THE MOVIE:
Patrick McGovern, CEO and President of Harlem United Community AIDS Center, will lead a conversation about the HIV/AIDS pandemic. His innovative Upper Manhattan organization provides a unique continuum of care for clients who have faced significant barriers to care due to poverty, race, HIV status, and sexual or gender identity.

Reception, hosted by Harlem United, follows.

The Josephine Baker Story
Dir. Brian Gibson, 1991, 131 min.
“Before Madonna. Before Marilyn. There was Josephine.” Brian Gibson’s made-for-cable TV Emmy Award winning biography of Josephine Baker (played by Lynn Whitfield) chronicles the different stages of La Baker’s life and her rise to fame, from her days as Freda Josephine McDonald living on the streets as a school drop-out in Saint Louis, MO to her promising beginnings as a vaudeville dancer, to her journey to New York during the Harlem Renaissance where she performed at the Plantation Club and later in a number of popular Broadway revues. From there, the film depicts her arrival in Paris at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees and later to the Folies Bergeres in Paris, where she strangely found more success than in the United States. To his credit, Gibson goes beyond the rags-to-riches formula, engaging Josephine Baker’s life in politics, her role in the French Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, while broadly chronicling the relationships, experiences and circumstances that shaped Josephine Baker’s life and diverse oeuvre.

AFTER THE MOVIE:
Panel discussion including La Baker’s son and midtown restaurateur Jean-Claude Baker and other special invited guests.

Reception sponsored by Sugar Hill Ale!

Naked White Roses
Dir. Henry B. Roa, 2009, 105 min.
Trance is a New York City poet on the eve of a showcase that could, at last, propel him into the mainstream. But when he discovers that his lover of eight years is having an affair, his life is turned upside down and his dreams are suddenly deferred. Cut to five years later. Trance has moved on with his life when he meets Alex and a new fire is sparked. Will Trance find love again? Will he regain his voice? Only time will tell. Through music, poetry and stunning visuals, “Naked White Roses” explores the subjects of following your dreams, gay and bicultural relationships, and love and loss.