First and Foremost: Rógan Graham on Black Debutantes

Yes, and I’ve spoken to some of the filmmakers—including Naked Acts director Bridgett M. Davis, who has herself written about her film’s rerelease in the States, for SEEN magazine—about that anger and deprivation. But I’m hoping that increased engagement with the work, within this framework, allows the filmmakers to speak for themselves, or leads to them wanting to speak for themselves. A strange thing can happen when you encounter a film when it has an anniversary or a restoration, and it almost exists outside of the context of the filmmakers’ contemporaries or the movement it was working in—not always, but oftentimes. And that film is put on a pedestal until the next year rolls around and something else is plucked out. I think—or hope—that putting these particular works and filmmakers in the context of one another will open up more conversation. And the filmmakers can be alongside their contemporaries, whereas in the past they may have been pitted against one another—because many of them were working in the 1990s—for funding. And the same goes for audiences too. It’s not like you see one film, and you’re deprived, not knowing where to look next for something similar. It’s right there.

Feedback from the filmmakers was important. There were some I had relationships with—or was building relationships with—and some who were approached by the BFI. I thought to myself, I really hope I’ve got this framing right, because I didn’t want it to be an insult. Maybe I was overthinking it, but I felt that there was a risk of “poor them, and now I’m giving them new life,” which is just not . . . I was coming from a real place of excitement, thinking all of this work is amazing, and look, you get to see it all! I wanted that to be conveyed. That has been the case with the filmmakers I have interacted with, and I hope it continues to be the case in this new, updated iteration.

That was really interesting to me. I thought to myself, should I narrow it and make it about specific years? But then I was just like, no, because I’d be cutting off this, that, and the other. The initial concept was going to be centered on Black women filmmakers who have only made one theatrically released feature, and then I broadened it out and included films by directors who’ve made more than one film. That gave me license to include some more contemporary work, and, with the BFI program, I was looking at titles that didn’t have UK distribution to bolster awareness of them. But more than the years or eras of the films, I was conscious of how American the program is. And I think I still am. But then you just look at what is available and ready to be screened—and screened properly in terms of licensing, and making sure the right people are paid—and it gets narrower. Who has the infrastructure to preserve film and care for it, and which filmmakers are alive? All of these logistics come into it, and it’s America that has the most presence. I am conscious of it still, but it is what it is.

Ngozi Onwurah had made shorts before Welcome II the Terrordome, all incredibly, deeply personal work—she’s such a personal filmmaker. And then to come out of the gate with her feature debut, a dystopian, violent race film in ’90s Britain—that’s punk rock. When I first saw Naked Acts, it became such a favorite of mine—and it still is. Pretty Red Dress too—I’m from South London [where the film is set], so that was always going to resonate. But I think the way that Black masculinity is interrogated in it is so multifaceted. You meet the main character, Travis, when he’s just been released from prison. In a different film, he could just be a generic stereotype, but throughout Pretty Red Dress you discover how he finds confidence within himself, and I think it’s incredibly original. It’s interesting, because I think it’s a film—and I hope I’m not speaking out of turn—that, because of the realities of it being a Black working-class South London story for the most part, maybe doesn’t fit as neatly into what you’d expect from a queer film; and because it is a queer film, it doesn’t fit as neatly into what you’d expect from a Black South London story. It sits at the intersection, and that’s really special, and what makes it so good. Leslie Harris’s Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. is hilarious. It’s really funny, and tragic. It’s rare that you see a teenage girl who is as frustrating and familiar as the lead in that film. Every time I watch it, I think of girls from my school, and I think of myself: the scene in the classroom, where she’s just incredibly defiant, a pain in the arse. That’s me! That was me!

Exactly! And feeling exhausted by your family not understanding that, actually, they don’t need to be concerned about this because you’re onto different things, and being the first in your family, maybe, to have that ambition. There’s just so much in it. I understand that the film was in part made for educational purposes [the idea for the film was generated from a short film Harris made for Planned Parenthood called Another Girl], but there’s a lot more to it, and I think it speaks to the honesty of the filmmakers.