TAPE Los Angeles presents Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied, an experimental blend of documentary and performance that, in Riggs’ own words, was meant to, “shatter the nation’s brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference.” Tongues Untied was one of the first films to explore black, gay identity, and intersectionalism, which was made possible through the radical democratization of filmmaking through the introduction of video tape.

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SYNOPSIS

In Tongues Untied, Marlon Riggs’ juxtaposes scenes of dance, music, performance, and poetry by Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam, to explore the queer, male, African American experience. The non-linear structure of the film uses performance alongside interviews with queer African American men, documentary footage detailing North American Black gay culture, and Riggs working through his own experiences as a gay man. (TAPE)

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dir. Marlon Riggs, 1989, United States, digital projection

55 min

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7:30 PM DOORS

8 PM SCREENING

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Presented by T.A.P.E. - a Los Angeles based 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to facilitating support for analog media through free digitizing, education, hands-on training, equipment rentals and volunteer opportunities. Teach, archive, preserve, exhibit.

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