Philadelphia filmmaker Tiona McClodden’s new project gives a voice to a group of women whose stories — each a unique tale of struggle and triumph — together shed unprecedented light on the black lesbian community’s historical influence.
“The Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project” is a joint work by McClodden and Lisa Moore, a publisher who first began collecting stories from this community for a master’s thesis in the late 1990s.
Moore approached McClodden in 2008 — after the release of the filmmaker’s award-winning “black.womyn. conversations with lesbians of African descent.” — to propose building on Moore’s original work to create a feature-length documentary.
“She talked to me about some of the women that she had interviewed who had since died and that really made me realize that so many women in this community were dying without their histories being told,” McClodden said. “And, at that time, there were a lot films coming out that were these nostalgic documentaries about the civil-rights movement, but there was no real acknowledgement of the black-lesbian voice. And I knew there were a lot of women involved in those different movements but their stories just weren’t being told.”
McClodden and Moore’s film will showcase interviews with up to eight black-lesbian elders, interspersed with an array of archival material, some dating back to the 1930s, and interviews with other commentators.
While each woman will tell her own personal story, those narratives will be framed to shed light on lesser-known black movements, described directly by the women who took part in the underground meet-ups, conferences and other gatherings that fueled the black community’s progression, McClodden said.
“We want to show how these women link to historical movements in black history, like the pre-segregation civil-rights movement, the black arts and the theater movement. So the real backbone of the film is the women and their profiles. It’s very different from [“black.womyn.”] in the sense that it’s structured around these faces and trying to place and situate these women within black history. It’s a way to reclaim that sense of blackness and make sure these women are being seen as part of black history outside of our own history.”
McClodden said she and Moore are eager to provide a balanced picture and thus will collect stories from all corners of the country, including from one woman who lives in Union City, N.J.
Compiling those stories is no easy feat, McClodden noted, and will require organizers to embark on a two- to three-month national tour this fall for interviews and research.
To support the tour, the women have created an online fundraising challenge in which supporters are encouraged to help them reach their $10,000 goal by the end of July. With about two weeks left to go, the site is reporting that more than $5,000 has so far been raised.
Once the tour concludes, McClodden said they’ll begin working on editing the footage around the end of the year and will likely have a finished product by next summer.
While she expects the film to have personal resonance with black lesbians, McClodden said she’s also eager for it to reach the wider LGBT community, as well as mainstream audiences.
“A real big target of mine is the general black community, because right now there’s a lot of stigma and homophobia about my community within the larger black community. And I think this film will put that into context and show that there were black women who went toe to toe on issues of race but also brought to the table their sexuality and gender. A lot of the work I do is about myth-busting, and I think there is this idea that black lesbians just weren’t around back in the ’20s or ’30s, but we have people and pictures and footage to show that that’s not true. So I want to challenge black history so that it’s more naturally inclusive of the black lesbian community.”
To donate to the tour, visit www.indiegogo.com/The-Untitled-Black-Lesbian-Elder-Project. To learn more about the film, visit www.UBLEProject.tumblr.com.
