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ABOUT

U People (2006) is an incidental documentary exploring issues of ethnicity, gender identification, family, arts and activism in contemporary black queer women’s communities. The first ‘rockumentary’ of its kind, U People brings viewers behind the scenes of a not-so-typical music video shoot for out black lesbian artist Hanifah Walidah’s single “Make A Move,” which debuted on LOGO’s Click List in January of 2007. Directed by Walidah and Olive Demetrius, the film was made from the 20 hours of downtime footage consisting of an unprecedented cast and crew of thirty queer women, straight women and transpeople of color between the ages of 25 and 40 living in New York City. What the camera caught introduces hilarious, heartbreaking, candid and very human voices of young queer women of color into discussions of gender, race and humanity.
 
Regularly aired on MTV’s LOGO network since its debut, U People became the first LGBT film to be screened at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN in October of 2009, creating a much needed bridge between the gay rights movement and its relationship with the larger black-American populace. Since then, it has become a cultural movement, impacting the lives of black queer women, women of color, LGBT people, and many others across the globe. It has won several international festival awards, including the Jury Award for Best Documentary in the 2008 Image Nation Film Festival, the Audience Choice Award in the 2009 Paris De Les Femenists Film Festival in Paris, and a Most Outstanding Documentary nomination in the 2010 GLAAD Media Awards




 

Co-Director, Producer Hanifah Walidah

Photo Credit: Laylah Amatullah Barrayn

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