Category: Random Stuff

February 2016 Update

Posted on by krissy

Hello all, and I hope you are enjoying this mild winter as much as I am.
Here’s Mom looking badass in 1955.(Click it and it rotates correctly, I don’t know why it is doing this.)
mom
As some of you know, I’ve moved home to take care of my mother as she battles PSP – Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. According to the CDC, this disease is rare. However, in South Jersey, it is so common in older women that almost everyone I talk with has a grandmother or aunt who has/had it. Infuriating and expected, in a post-industrial wasteland poisoned by thorium, mercury, lead and asbestos. Camden will never gentrify because no white middle-class family would move here. It is neurologic birth defect ground zero (I was also born with a neurological abnormality in my brain stem.) Our sister-city-in-murder-rates, Flint, MI is a sorrowful example that poor, Black-majority cities are just allowed to die.

So it is difficult to focus on making movies during this time of intense eldercare. I have been writing screenplays and fiddling around with a remake of “Carol” when I have a few moments to myself. I also signed up for Film Freeway and so have been sending my videos to festivals for consideration. I am most excited for a project about my childhood, when we learned my best friend’s sister was a lesbian.

It has been exciting to see all the action figures of women in the news lately. I am glad that Faggotgirl has some Super Friends. I hope they have superpowers, and are not just to be looked at and dressed up. More later!

Novmber 2015 Update

Posted on by krissy

Howdy!
I’m very excited about the positive responses my movies have been receiving. It’s a compliment and it is an inspiration to make more. I have some new equipment and I’m so curious and excited about telling wacky stories with new tools.

Gender Reel 2015
I’ve screened movies at GenderReel every year it’s existed – that feels really cool especially since GenderReel has been growing, and gaining more recognition every year. My movie “1987, Summer” is part of this year’s traveling festival. The only screening left in 2015 is in Houston, Texas. I have a special place in my heart for the film community in Texas. At AGLIFF‘s “My Gay Movie” in 2004, “Faggotgirl Does Austin” won “The Weirdest Movie Jenn Garrison Had Ever Seen.” I treasure that award.

Scottish Queer Film Festival: Queer Women In Love
“This November and December, SQIFF is taking part in BFI Love with two programmes of films and events. Queer Women in Love is a diverse and exciting selection of films by and about lesbian, bisexual, and queer women with events across the UK. I Do? considers queerness and marriage marking the one year anniversary of changes to the marriage law in Scotland.”

BFI/Scottish Queer Film Festival’s Women in Love: The Virgin Machine
November 10, 2015
The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, Scotland
“The Virgin Machine”
In this early film by director Monika Treut, wannabe writer and journalist Dorothee leaves Germany for San Francisco searching for her long-lost mother and some insights into the ailment known as love. Encounters with male impersonator Ramona, charming bohemian Dominique, and purveyor of lesbian erotica, Susie Sexpert, result in liberating adventures in sexual self-discovery. When Dorothee surfaces a little dazzled on the wilder shores of the city’s lesbian community, she has discovered her sexuality…and left her illusions of romance behind.

Screening with short films “Fingers” by Sandra Alland, and “1987, Summer””Fingers” features a British Sign Language (BSL) poetry performance by Alison Smith about love, longing, and the sexiness of touch. “1987, Summer” is about a a baby dyke who has landed in a gay resort town during the AIDS crisis. She plays softball, goes clubbing, sleeps with lots of women, and learns about who she is and what she wants.
Part of BFI Love, in partnership with Plusnet bfi.org.uk/love

It is such an honor, and so humbling, that my movie will be screening on World AIDS Day 2015, because it is about me and my friends trying to figure out the world as gay men were dying around us. We were kind of blaming ourselves AND feeling guilty AND trying to not get AIDS AND trying to figure out a political response AND trying to be young, gender-non-conforming people when we had no analysis of gender or trans issues or sexism generally. We did all of that badly, I am sad to say. But I want to talk about that, and see how far we all still have to go on those issues, including a comprehensive response to AIDS.

WORLD AIDS DAY 2015
BFI/Scottish Queer Film Festival’s Women In Love – Go Fish
December 1, 2015
Dundee University Feminist Society.
Room 3G02 within Dalhousie Building.

Go Fish:
Max is a too-cool-for-school young lesbian woman stressing over the fact she hasn’t had sex for ten months. After first dismissing hippy, excessive drinker of tea Ely, Max goes on a date with her, leading to a long-term mutual infatuation and a ‘will they, won’t they’ romantic trajectory. A collaboration between Guinevere Turner (The Watermelon Woman, Itty Bitty Titty Committee) and Rose Troche, Go Fish features a supporting cast of lesbian waifs and strays, including Ely’s sex addict roommate Daria and Max’s roommate Kia, whose girlfriend Evy has been kicked out her home by her homophobic mum.

Screening with short films “Dyketactics” and “Summer, 1987.” “Dyketactics” by Barbara Hammer is a sensuous, bold look at women’s desire and sexuality from a seminal lesbian filmmaker. “Summer, 1987” by Krissy Mahan is set in summer in the late 1980s when a baby dyke has landed in a gay resort town during the AIDS crisis. She plays softball, goes clubbing, sleeps with lots of women, and learns about who she is and what she wants.
Free. Donations will be taken for World AIDS Day.

Part of SQIFF presents: Queer Women in Love, a season of films by and about lesbian, bisexual, and queer women. Part of BFI LOVE, in partnership with Plusnet bfi.org.uk/love

BFI/Scottish Queer Film Festival: Queer Women In Shorts
December 15, 2015
The Royal Vauxhall Taver, London, England
Scottish Queer International Film Festival (SQIFF) in collaboration with Wotever DIY Film Festival and Bar Wotever presents a selection of shorts from SQIFF’s Queer Women in Love season, featuring films by and about lesbian, bisexual, and queer women. The line-up includes a range of styles and ideas relating to the theme of love from Barbara Hammer’s innovative 1970s lesbian experiment Dyketactics to Ami Nashimoto’s vegan, gluten-free date nightmare-comedy Dinner For Two, via queer filmmaking legend Cheryl Dunye’s very first film, Janine, and activist Krissy Mahan’s 1980s-set gay beach town dramedy, 1987, Summer.
With an introduction from SQIFF’s Helen Wright.

This is how accessibility, and information about it, is done well!
Tyneside Cinema is accessible for wheelchairs. Each of the Tyneside’s Cinema’s screens have power assisted doors and dedicated spaces for wheelchair users. If you specifically require tickets for the wheelchair spaces available in our auditoria, you can contact Box Office on 0845 217 9909. There is high contrast signage throughout the building, complete with braille. Tyneside also uses the Phonic infrared headset system to provide amplified sound in their screens. Headsets are available for this service from the Box Office on the ground floor and Tyneside Bar on the third floor.

The Starlite Lounge, racism and vanishing queer spaces

Posted on by krissy

The Royal Vauxhall Tavern has been granted a Grade II listing in London. This is a victory.

There is a lot of interest these days about “vanishing queer spaces.” In 2010 I was part of a team that was fighting for the survival of The Starlite Lounge, the only Black-owned, non-discriminating, gay-friendly bar in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. A documentary about this bar is making the festival circuit this year, and it will be playing in Scotland this month. I have questions about the filmmakers’ process in making it.
Why did they make this film? Who has been able to see it? Why isn’t this video widely available for free, immediately?
I used to go to this bar because it was fun and had really nice people there. Also, it reminded me of the bars I’m used to, because it functioned as a senior center during the afternoon, like the bars in Gloucester City do. My grandmother ran the Kit Kat Tap Room back in the day, and a person could find child care, a used car, or someone to do a favor for you at a tavern like that.
I heard about the Starlite losing their lease during one of the evenings I was there drinking. The Starlite Lounge owners, regulars and members of the Audre Lorde Project’s Safe Outside The System developed a response. The Starlite Lounge was a S.O.S. Safe Space– The S.O.S. Collective organizes and educates local businesses and community organizations on how to stop violence without relying on law enforcement.
During those days while some of us were fighting to keep the space open, the directors of “We Came To Sweat” were trying to get good shots for their film.

Wortzel and Kunath gathered the Starlite community’s stories, and are selling those compelling stories to festival audiences. The Starlite community is priced out of their own history, their own story isn’t available in their own neighborhood. I have been trying to watch their completed documentary (finished years after the fact) and can’t find it except for at festival screenings. The NYC screening was not held in Crown Heights. How can Crown Heights residents watch this film? Have the Starlite regulars been present at screenings to tell their history themselves, or have the white directors flown to festival screenings, and talked “for” the customers of this traditionally Black bar?

Brookyn had the highest percentage of enslaved people of African descent per capita in New York State. After slavery was ended, people of African descent were only legally allowed to live (not own any property) near the area that became Crown Heights. Through the years this area suffered unbelievable civic neglect. So when white filmmakers gentrify this particular neighborhood, it is eliminating the only place where Black people have ever been even allowed to subsist in Brooklyn. White filmmakers are NOT just the “the next wave of immigrants,” no matter how good their intentions are. What is the filmmakers relationship to this historical reality?
In this Vice article online, the (white) director stated that they had never heard about the Starlite Lounge until they wanted to move to an apartment in the historically black neighborhood, Crown Heights. The Starlite had already learned they would lose their lease. Was a reaction of the filmmakers “wow this would make a great documentary!”
What improvements have been made to the neighborhood, and to the state of filmmaking in the neighborhood, as a result of the film? Even if a project seems valuable, if white filmmakers are making documentaries in racist ways, white filmmakers are supporting white supremacy.

Wotever DIY Film Festival 2015 Day 3

Posted on by krissy

I had been looking forward to the program Sunday afternoon featuring Digital Desperados called “The Best of GLITCH” since I heard about their film festival in the spring 2015 and i was so happy that I would get to see some of the films. And because I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with Nosheen and Cloudberry the day before, I was even more excited to see the fruit of their labor. After the screening, Nosheen and Tara Brown led a discussion about the films and their work.
“Digital Desperados are a Glasgow-based charity which run free filmmaking courses for women (trans welcome) of colour and hold free film screenings of films by/about people of colour. Glitch was their first dedicated 10 day *QTIPoC film festival from the 19th – 28th March 2015 – the first of it’s kind in Europe!
All films were subtitled and all live events were BSL interpreted
*queer(& lgb)/trans /intersex people of colour”

Here is the program:

What I Love ABout Being Queer Dir. Vivek Shraya, Canada, 2012 | 18 mins 23
34 beautiful Queers. One big question.
Drone Dir. Sharlene Bamboat, Canada, 2012, 1:53 min
Drone: a remote controlled aerial vehicle or missile; a monotonous speech.

Drone: a reaction to the current United States government drone attacks in Northern Pakistan. 
Drone examines the shifting nature of the language of war in the redefinition of the terms “civilian” and “casualty.”
The Homecoming: A Short Film About Ajamu Dir. Topher Campbell, UK, 17 min
This film follows and interviews the warm and engaging photographer Ajamu. It highlights the important significance of his skilled photography and his nuanced representation of black, gay men.
Womb Child | Dirs Andra Simons, Joao Trinidade & Coralita Simons, UK & Bermuda, 2015, 3 mins 26
In The Ladies Lounge Dir. Fadia Abboud, Australia, 2007, 12 mins
Two contemporary Lebanese Australian dykes come across an old poster from Beirut in 1926 of two women dressed in suits… Some things may have changed, some things certainly haven’t. *contains brief nudity*
On the Road Again Dir. Azra K, UK, 2013, 9 min 37
A poetic look at movement, sex and the open road and how necessary it is in the filmmaker’s life.
Purging Dir. Nabeela Vega, USA, 2013, 1 min 32
Nabeela Vega uses a split screen to create tension between simultaneous actions as the artist adorns, effects and purges fluid from their body in a ritual of cleansing and sacrifice. The body is referenced and explored as a temple within Indo-islamic traditions.
1000 Cum Shots | Dir. Wayne Yung | Canada | 2003 | 1 min
A fast paced meditation on race and gay pornography.
Ashes | Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul | Thailand | 2012 | 20mins
Ashes contemplates love, pleasure, and the destruction of memory. The surroundings of everyday life are shared with extreme intimacy. For Apichatpong, Thailand, while full of beauty, is slowly collapsing into darkness.

I recommend you watch “Purging” by Nabeela Vega – I keep seeing it in my mind. Also, that night I would have liked to attend the “Wot Sex II” program curated by Ingo I attended Wotever Sex last year and it was really hot.

Sunday evening, my fanciest video yet – “1987, Summer” screened. I am so proud of it, and I was happy to see it looking pretty good on the big screen (I used my phone to make it, and if I would have preferred to use a real camera, but wotever, I wanted to get it made.) I was also happy that the audience laughed at all the right places. I’m finding that humor is a subtle art, or rather, things I think are HILARIOUS aren’t always what makes people laugh. (See: “My Craxy Boxers“) I was happy that my fabulous hosts, Angie West and Jac Nunns of Looking At You Productions, also had a draft of their new, fun and smart film in this program. For both movies, we were directing people on locations and pushing our work to a more ambitious level of making films.
I was also excited to see the film “A Teenage Melodrama In Four Parts” by Olivia Sparrow. Olivia Sparrow had made the movie “The Very Last Plea From My Heart”, Olivia Sparrow, 2012, UK, 00:06:50 From the BFI screening program notes: “The term ‘Queer’ has enormous scope, encompassing not only LGBTQIA* relationships, but alternatively or non-normatively gendered bodies and different modes of eroticism. In this beautifully shot film, tenderness and longing meet Brutalist architecture as the director explores her love affair with Birmingham Library. Frank and frankly sexy, it fuses the urban space with queer desire and is one of the most compelling and beguiling films we’ve ever shown.”) This film is also one of the most compelling and beguiling films I’ve ever seen.

The last film in the program was set in Tel Aviv, Israel. It had very high production values. The end credits scrolled by so quickly and were so small, that I wasn’t able to read them. It certainly looked like it had some funding, although that might be unfair of me to say, because some films at the program had no funding and were gorgeous. Ok, so I don’t consider myself a Debbie Downer, I like to think of myself as a hopeful, fun and non-judgemental person who supports other artists. So it was with some hesitancy that during the post-screening Q & A that I brought up the cultural boycott of Israel. If i remember correctly, I think I said “I don’t know anything about who made that last film set in Tel Aviv, but I want to say here that I support the cultural boycott of the state of Israel.” The moderator, Stephanie Goldberg, graciously asked me if I would like to say more about that. I said (I think) something about how I reject Israels’ attempts at pinkwashing – the fact is that Israel murders Palestinians, so using the LGBTQIA+ film festivals to promote that Israel is a great/humane/welcoming place, is both creepy and plainly wrong. The festival programmers thanked me for addressing this important issue. I think the festival organizers honestly also don’t know the provenance of this film, and were glad to have the discussion about BDS at the festival.
WDIYFF
In this photo (l-r) Helen Wright of SQIFF and Lock Up Your Daughters, Jac Nuns of Looking At You Productions, krissy mahan, Olivia Sparrow, and Stephanie Goldberg at the Q & A after this Intergen program, August 23, 2015, The Cinema Museum, London.

August 23, 2015 was the last day of the Wotever DIY Film Festival, and I was sad to see it go. I went with Faith Taylor and her ladyfriend to Shoreditch for dinner, then on to Dalston for drinks, and didn’t get home until 4am. (Here’s a video I made a video for her song “Foolish Age.”)

Wotever DIY FIlm Festival 2015 – Day 2

Posted on by krissy

Saturday started with breakfast with (the Danish boi band) New Male Privilege so I knew it would be a good day. I traveled together with my gracious hosts Jac and Angie of Looking at You Productions to the filmmaker’s networking event that they sponsored. I met some great people and had a good lunch before heading downstairs to the smaller theatre at The Cinema Museum, where the program I was in was held.

The event description reads: “22nd August 13.30 Film and Q&A with filmmakers.
Space, Place, DIY: A Three-way Retrospective of Bev Zalcock and Sara Chambers, Val Phoenix and Krissy Mahan
Ideas of community and place have rarely been as pertinent as they are now as we witness the turbo-gentrification of urban areas and rapid loss of queer spaces. In this retrospective, some of our favourite, DIY, lesbian or queer-identified filmmakers explore connections to space, place and time and depict the complex relationship between female or queer bodies and the urban or pastoral environments. In particular, these films embody an ultra-DIY ethic and experimentalism which forms an inspiring example of what can be achieved on little or no budget.”
I was honored that my films got such attention, and preparing for the Q & A made me carefully consider what the heck I am doing with my movies. When I make them, they seem pretty immediate, and this was the first time I presented them as a “body of work” – the 4 films selected (by their programmers) were “Until Justice Rolls,” “The Genesis of Butch & Femme,” “Starlite Stays,” and “Memoir, My Dykeumentary.” I attended the screening dressed as Faggotgirl, and of course had her with me.
My favorite film of the program was Bev Zalcock and Sara Chambers are Barrelstout Productions (formerly Pitbull Productions)’s Dayglo (You Know You Know), shot on Super 8, UK, 2011, 03:00 “Made in memory of Poly Styrene singer & songwriter, once of the punk band X Ray Spex. Poly’s music has always inspired us for its spirit of feminism & liberation; we’re particularly fond of ‘Oh Bondage Up Yours!’ The film’s soundtrack features her biggest hit, and uses an abstract array of vivid colours, some of which are made by painting food dyes on to the film emulsion.” Beautiful and hilarious.
The discussion after the movies was interesting and fun. We filmmakers had great discussion and the audience asked us thoughtful questions. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, and i even enjoyed it.

After the program, we went outside and had some beers, and I had the chance to connect with Digital Desperados, who came to London for a screening of their “Best of Glitch” (more on that tomorrow). They are brilliant and friendly and we even went to dinner together before the evening program! I felt really cool.

That evening I attended the program “The Personal Is Political.”
22nd August 19.30 @ Cinema Museum
“The Personal is Political is a fact most queers live with every day, especially if facing intersecting oppressions such as race, gender or disability. These films are about a politics that is both individual and universal in how it isolates and unites us. It’s about queer people of all identities finding their own way in the world, whether it’s through dance (Private Dancer, He’s the Greatest Dancer), music (I’m Not Your Inspiration), sexual exploration (Push Me), telling your story (Bedding Andrew) and ultimately through each other; in friendship (MingMong – about coming of age and rejection), family (Guao) and loved ones. These films showcase queer people’s explorations within this.”
Faggotgirl made her World Premiere in “Faggotgirl In Winter,” and my favorite movie was “Private Dancer -Catwalk” dir. Henri H Hiltunen, Sweden. As soon as I saw it I wanted to watch it again. I also loved “A Rabbit’s Tale,” dir. Rachel Shenton, UK, 2015 4:04 WORLD PREMIERE – and that movie is going to friggin’ Cannes Short Film Festival! Respect. I met Rachel and Becky on Thursday night because their movie “Morgan” was part of the Wotever DIY Film Festival at The British Film Institute on Thursday. After that program, we all went upstairs to catch the performance of New Male Privilege and a group from I think Sweden but I can’t find the name just now.
Angie, Ingo and Naomi from Planet London and I all went out to dinner after the program and had a lovely time.
photo
(In this photo you can see Tanya Wol, Nosheen and Cloudberry of Digital Desperados, the other filmmakers in this program Barrelstout Productions, Val Phoenix and many of the kind people who attended. Thank you!
And here’s a photo from Saturday night, with the discussion led by festival programmer Stephanie Goldberg.
photo-2

Wotever DIY Film Fest 2015 Opening Night Notes

Posted on by krissy

FU377 dir. Neelu Bhuman, UK, 2014, 5:00
Stories of Our Lives dir, Jim Chuchu, Kenya, 2014 62:00

These two amazing films led off the festival and wow did they set a high bar for excellence and relevance. I’m thrilled I got to see them on a big screen, they are both absolutely compelling.

FU37 has wonderful animation and a lively story. I appreciated FU377 especially because it about a daughter and mother- and they are talking about their lives while world events are happening. I am very interested in figuring out ways to reach and politicize white working class people- and this movie is such an inspiration to me about how to be a daughter/filmmaker while staying a funny and beloved part of a community. I loved it.

“Stories Of Our Lives” is the reason to attend film festivals. Kenya is busy banning it, and I am so lucky I had a chance to see this powerful film. From the director Jim Chuchu “Created as part of the NEST Collective, Stories of our Lives is Jim Chuchu’s first feature film – consisting of five black-and-white vignettes: Duet, Run, Ask Me Nicely (Itisha Poa), Each Night I Dream, and Stop Running Away – that document the queer Kenyan experience.”
White people need to see this movie. And need to help get it widely distributed and give money to make more films like this.
After the screening, Tara Brown, a WDIYFF programmer and producer, led an insightful discussion with her guest Chardine Taylor-Stone. Their comments were BSL interpreted.
image

Tara Brown @tbirdFliesHigh is a queer poly black disabled fat femme cis feminist fangirl forever+ever. She is a director of Wotever DIY Film Festival and is co-runner of & Here Be Dragons (9Worlds) Film Festival.

Chardine Taylor-Stone is a writer, musician and activist. She was the program coordinator for Black British Feminism: Past, Present and Futures 2015 which attempted to trace black feminist legacies into the present and encourage a return to an activist centered movement.

Here is a link to the LondonLive spot they filmed at the opening night.

2015 Wotever DIY Film Festival (notes #1)

Posted on by krissy

WDIYFF at the BFI
WDIYFF at the BFI
WDIYFF at The Cinema Museum
WDIYFF at The Cinema Museum

I want my voice my dissent with joyfulness and creativity. I’ve been richly blessed to be part of transformative creative groups (Holding Our Own, ALLGO, The Austin Project, ASRC, SRLP, artists with whom I’ve collaborated, etc) and I’m thrilled to say that I’ve just returned from a film festival that has deepened my commitment to the arts as a site of resistance and disruption of the (murderous) status quo.

I am convinced that meaningful justice movements are built of individuals and small groups who organize around that which affirms their lives, who then respectfully join up their shared voices/strengths in the service of justice for even the most marginalized among us.

Why am I saying all this? Because the films at the Wotever DIY Film Festival 2015 were all individually strong statements, and when seen as a whole The Film Establishment and more generally, the white suprematist neo-liberal project has MUCH TO FEAR from queer filmmakers.

This weekend I hope to write more about the programs I attended and awe-inspiring people I met.
bfibfi2

Summer 2015 Update

Posted on by krissy

Wow! The summer is heating up and I am so excited about jersey tomatoes, the women’s world cup, positive responses to my movies, and the beach.

Three of my movies have been accepted to be screened at the Wotever DIY Film Fest in London, UK. I’m super excited about that! Also I hear that something i made will also screen at the British Film Institute on August 20, 2015. I hope that my Irish ancestors will be getting a good laugh out of that, along with the audience. I’ll make a separate post about this great festival as the program is finalized, as well post links to the movies. I’m pleased to say that all 3 movies are captioned, and I hope to do a live descriptive narration if they let me– that was such fun last year.

My movie “Summer, 1987” has also been chosen as part of the touring “Gender Reel Festival.” I have been part of that film festival a few years now, I am proud to say. I am happy that the world seems to be understanding the difference between sexuality and gender expression. I think the movies are a great way to help people learn in a non-threatening environment. GenderReel will include a screening in Philadelphia, and at New York University again in the spring.

Now i just need to get a bar in Gloucester City that will let me take over the televisions…

My dear friend Paula Ioanide’s book The Emotional Politics of Racism: How Feelings Trump Facts in an Era of Colorblindness Is available now, and it’s been getting rave reviews. I am blessed that my cover art is part of such an important project.

All this success wouldn’t be possible without the support and nurturing of my mentors, and I remain deeping endebted to all of them. Of note most recently is Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Ase, and the Power of the Present Moment
by Omi Osun Joni L Jones.

Also, Sharon Bridgforth and Omi will be the IDEX Artists-In-Residence this year as well.

So many blessings, so much to be grateful for.
Sharon bridgforth Omi Dr Jones

Where Is All My Social Media?

Posted on by krissy

Although i consider myself a private person, this list indicates that i should revisit that idea.

I have a Tumblr blog of food with hats, hands (usually in gloves), shoes and usually whimsical expressions on their faces – as they entice someone to eat them. This Tumblr site also has things that make me happy. It is here
dykeumentary on tumblr

I tweet about Faggotgirl and film and fun at Faggotgirl on Twitter

I tweet about dykes, my life, and things i care about at Dykeumentary on Twitter

I am only on Facebook every now and then. It just aggravates me most days, for a variety of reasons. I do follow my softball team updates there.

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