Directors Deondray & Quincy Gossfield are a prominent Black queer producing/directing couple. Producer and writer, Robert Philipson, is a queer Jewish senior. His company, Shoga Films, specializes in films that explore the intersection of race and sexuality. Most actors will be Black.

In a 1926 arts magazine called Fire!!, a young Harlem Renaissance writer, Richard Bruce Nugent, published the first positive depiction of same-sex love in American letters, “Smoke, Lilies and Jade.” 

 

 

Reviled upon its publication, Nugent’s prose poem suffered decades of obscurity before being rediscovered in the 1980s. It has since been hailed not only for its ground-breaking subject matter but for the beauty of its writing. Our film adaptation, the first of its kind, will introduce this lyrical queer masterpiece to the widest possible audience.

 

For those of you familiar with "Congo Cabaret," shown in the pitch video, "Smoke, Lilies and Jade" will also be incorporated into a feature-length documentary about how queers shaped the Harlem Renaissance in profound and as-yet-not-widely-recognized ways. The vision here is large, but "Smoke, Lilies and Jade" will make history on its own merits.

 

This will be the second collaboration between the Black queer directing couple, Deondray and Quincy Gossfield, and Shoga Films. For the last decade, Shoga has been producing music videos and documentaries that highlight the queer Harlem Renaissance (https://vimeo.com/ondemand/queerbluesdivas). Recently the Gossfields joined the team to bring their narrative directorial skills to adaptations of literary texts from the period. Our first project, "Congo Cabaret," is currently on the festival circuit, has been accepted into a dozen different festivals, and has garnered several awards. The Gossfields secured top-rate talent, such as Parisa Fitz-Henley (Midnight, Texas) and Kevin Daniels (Modern Family). 

 

The time is 1926. That means costumes, sets, locations in addition to the usual filmmaking apparatus of actors, hair and makeup, cameras, lighting, script supervision. There will also be a musical performance: a singer, a pianist, a studio recording to synch to the video. 

 

Our team has already demonstrated that we can turn the literary products of the queer Harlem Renaissance into gorgeous film, a medium that has potentially far greater reach than the printed word. Nugent's prose is sensuous, wave-like, drawing his audience into the mind and feelings of a young artist coming to self-knowledge both sexually and psychologically. Because "Smoke . . ." is the best-known literary representation of the queer Harlem Renaissance, it has value both as a work of art and a testament of historic witness. We were there -- even then. And we were Black, literate, sophisticated, funny, complex, passionate. Our script will put that on the screen. 

 

Gains made by Blacks and queers over the past decades are in jeopardy. Being Black AND queer has never been simple. The general public is not aware that the Harlem Renaissance was as gay as it was Black. "Smoke, Lilies and Jade" reminds us that queer expression stretches back for almost a century, that Blacks created queer content and culture, that queer visibility was not the sole provenance of white LGBT people.

 

We're excited about launching this project. We have new energy and collaborators involved in Shoga Films as we move forward with "Smoke, Lilies and Jade." We hope that you will be part of the process and contribute to this important project. Thank you for you support.

 

For those of you who are interested in such things, here's a pie chart of where the money's going. You might notice that what we're raising won't cover the expenses of the projected budget, but we'll make up the shortfall somehow. Indie filmmakers live on hope and largesse.