Marlon Riggs Movies

Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance,...

From Amos 'n' Andy to Nat King Cole, from Roots to The Cosby Show, black people have played many roles on primetime television. Brilliantly weaving clips from classic TV shows with commentary from TV producers, black actors and scholars, Marlon Riggs blends humor, insight, and thoughtful analysis...

This documentary traces the deep-rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-black prejudice.

A collage of erotic images and a call to arms, with a feverish hip-hop energy that celebrates the lives of African American men.

African-American documentary filmmaker Marlon Riggs was working on this final film as he died from AIDS-related complications in 1994; he addresses the camera from his hospital bed in several scenes. The film directly addresses sexism and homophobia within the black community, with snippets of...

A look at what it's like to be gay and black in America.

Marlon Riggs and Peter Webster’s thesis project reflects on the heyday of Oakland blues in the late 1940s and ’50s, when an influx of African American shipyard workers mostly hailing from Louisiana and Texas arrived in the Bay Area. Combining vintage photographs, archival footage, interviews,...

Five gay Black men who are HIV-positive discuss how they are battling the double stigmas surrounding their infection and homosexuality.

Positive Men begins as a docudrama which illustrates the impact of the AIDS epidemic on gay men in the early 1980s. Memories of New York and San Francisco are the backdrop for seven dramatic scenes which designate the intersection of community support, medical science, and gay politics that emerged...

Incorporating archival material, revelatory verite footage, and clips from his own work, a documentary which chronicles the life and works of the black, openly gay filmmaker Marlon Riggs whose controversial body works exploded on the scene with his landmark 1989 film "Tongues Untied" (USA). Riggs...

The narrator/filmmaker is Peter Adair (Word is Out) and the disease is the HIV virus. Adair has asked 11 people — women and men, gay and straight, from all walks of life — to share their stories. Alternately irreverent, candid and soulful, this stirring film is not about being sick; it is about...

An examination of atomic weapons systems and the pressures on the United States and the Soviet Union to constantly expand their atomic arsenals.