A Tribute to My Mentor Marlon Riggs

I’m thrilled to have found an additional distributer this week for a film that I made in 1996. It’s a loving biography of my mentor. Marlon Riggs was a gay, black man who became a lightning rod in the congressional battle over arts funding in the 90’s.

I met Marlon at UC Berkeley‘s Graduate School of Journalism. He was teaching, and I was trying to figure out my career path at age 27. I remember sitting in a theater watching his personal documentary, Tongues Untied. It aired on the first season of PBS’s POV series amidst great controversy.

In it, he revealed how his HIV diagnosis helped free his tongue to come out as a proud, black gay man. As a proud lesbian–with a few media representations at the time–I was riveted.

I became passionate about making documentaries and was honored to be called one of his “children”, along with a handful of other protegees. In addition to directing a biography of his life, I produced three of my own personal documentaries that played at hundreds of film festivals. Marlon taught me how to speak candidly in front of the camera.

Since then, his legacy lives on. For my part, I’ve helped dozens of filmmakers tell autobiographical stories on film.

In honor of Marlon and Black History Month, I’m sharing a one-time link to ”I Shall Not Be Removed: The Life of Marlon Riggs”. I hope you’re inspired by the story of a filmmaker who produced award-winning documentaries at a furious pace.

In the film, his colleague Dr. Barbara Christian says, “Marlon opened a space in which black people in America can be represented.” Thank you to California Newsreel for help getting his work out there.

Sadly, Marlon died of AIDS in 1994, just before effective HIV medications became widely available.