PROGRAM

The LGBTQ Policy Center at Roosevelt House—in partnership with Queer Voices NYC, the CUNY School of Professional Studies, and Borough of Manhattan Community College—is pleased to present a screening of the award-winning 2022 Billy Porter-produced film, BLACK AS U R. The screening will be followed by a conversation with director Micheal Rice and fellow Black queer filmmaker Sekiya Dorsett about the reality of intersectional black queer and trans identities—with a focus on the recent politicization of black and queer people. In keeping with the LGBTQ Policy Center’s mission, we will also be discussing black queer people’s integral role in movement-building for both communities.

BLACK AS U R poses to Black America a highly confrontational and much avoided question: why do we as a people protest against racial injustice, but disregard the injustices experienced by black queer people? In this incendiary documentary, filmmaker Micheal Rice takes the audience on a journey through the homophobia that characterizes many black spaces, both contemporarily and via an autobiographic look into his own upbringing in the south. BLACK AS U R  is the first step in confronting the African American community about queerphobia, via the searing stories of queer black people.

 Panelists:

Micheal Rice (he/him) is a filmmaker, producer, choreographer, and creative director for stage and film. Rice has over 15 years of experience working across multiple platforms, from television to regional theatre. He has worked with a slew of different production houses, agencies such as IMG, WME, Big Fish Entertainment, and noted artists such as Chadwick Boseman, Janet Hubert, composer Bill Lee, and theatre guru Woodie King Jr. Rice’s new documentary BLACK AS U R has received global acclaim for its illumination of Black trans issues, the importance of self-affirmation, and the subject of homophobia in Black spaces. BLACK AS U R has toured in such countries as the UK, Portugal, Germany, Canada, Italy, and the US, making history as the inaugural winner of the “Out in The Silence Award” from the largest LGBTQ Film Festival in the world, Frameline, in 2022. His work is a fusion of art, love, reflection, and activism from behind and in front of the lens.

Sekiya Dorsett (she/her, MFA ‘18) is a GLAAD award-winning filmmaker and leader of Seabreeze media. Her body of work is notable for its intimate storytelling and centering of a multidimensional Black experience. Her films include the 2017 documentary The Revival: Women and the Word, about a touring group of Black lesbian poets and musicians, and the 2019 docuseries Stonewall 50: The Revolution. She was also part of the team behind 2021’s In Our Mothers Gardens, now on Netflix, about confessional storytelling among intergenerational Black women. Her newest film, Caribbean Queen, addresses the stigma facing LGBTQ Caribbeans, and her forthcoming film, I Love Bed-Stuy, is a docu-fiction love letter to the iconic Brooklyn neighborhood.

This event is also co-sponsored by the CUNY LGBTQ Advisory Council and made possible in part by the generous support of the New York City Council and the CUNY LGBTQ Consortium.