“Ever since society’s respective shut down, I have been constantly reminded of the importance of community,” recounts Alima Lee, curator of the online series Films for Isolation. A Los Angeles-based filmmaker herself, Lee teamed up with the Women’s Center for Creative Work (WCCW) to bring together short films by contemporary, Black queer artists that explore the meaning of belonging and home — a concept we’re all surely thinking more about as we confine ourselves indoors.
The series kicked off with Rikkí Wright‘s “A Song About Love” (2019), a moving meditation on the different forms of love in this world, from human to divine (you can still watch this one through today, Tuesday, April 14). The next film, “Growing Each Day” (2019) by Clifford Prince King, will be available to stream April 15–21 and is a story about Black male love and what it’s like to live with an illness. In the words of writer Mandy Harris Williams, the film “asks significant questions,” like: “what does intimacy look like when caretaking? What sort of intimacy do we find in sickness?”
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
Lee will also be sharing one of her own films, “Flesh To Spirit’”(2019), between April 22 and 28, offering yet another perspective on the endless subject of love. Though, again in Williams’s words, love here is “not necessarily romantic, and not necessarily between more than one person.” (For another take on love/not-love, I recommend checking out Lee’s collaboration with the singer Kelsey Lu, the poetic and mesmerizing music video “I’m Not in Love.”)
Films for Isolation will conclude with “5 Things I Know For Sure” (2020) by Sydney Canty (on view April 29–May 5), a personal account on how Canty became the person they are today.
The program is a unique opportunity to see experimental films that are not widely circulated and that are presented in a thoughtful context — I imagine it’s most rewarding to watch all of them, in succession, as they build on each other beautifully like a book of interconnected essays.
When: April 8–May 5
Where: Online, via the Women’s Center for Creative Work
More info here
Source: Hyperallergic.com