DOCUMENTARY ‘BLACK AS U R a Micheal rice film’ QUESTIONS THE BLACK COMMUNITY ON IT’S PROTECTION OF BLACK QUEER LIVES

The film follows the intersectional lives of black and brown LGBTQ youth fighting for equality within their own communities

NEW YORK, NY (December 10, 2021) - New documentary BLACK AS U R a micheal rice film, continues Rice’s legacy of sparking conversation centered around the LGBTQIA experience. In this incendiary documentary, Rice takes the audience on a journey through the homophobia that characterizes many Black spaces, both contemporarily and via an autobiographical look into his own upbringing in the south.

As a post-Trump society wracked by Covid-19 and economic recession, America is experiencing radical and constant change. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, who suffocated Floyd as bystanders pleaded with him to relent. Protests immediately erupted and the city of Minneapolis went up in flames, as the murder sparked a firestorm of national and international protest. 

Minneapolis now had the world’s attention, yet in the same week, in the same city, a young black trans teenager named Iyanna Dior was brutally attacked following an altercation in a convenience store parking lot. As Iyanna was viciously beaten by a mob of young black men and women screaming homophobic slurs, a few blocks away Black Americans were chanting that ‘Black Lives Matter’. Given Iyanna’s experience, it appeared that actually not all Black lives matter. Or do they only matter if you’re Black and heterosexual?  

BLACK AS U R a micheal rice film brings to the forefront a conversation whispered and often silenced within the Black community for generations. Unspoken fear, hatred, and misunderstanding of Black queerness have catalyzed mental and physical violence against a subset of the Black community who have largely been the leaders in cultural expansion and the fight against racial injustice.

“I decided to create a love letter to my younger self as a same-gender-loving black boy growing up in the south. Misguided by some notions of what a man is supposed to be I quickly learned to mask so many layers of myself in order to fit in a template of masculinity.” says director Micheal Rice about the film. “In creating BLACK AS U R, I wanted to create a film that derived from the soul of a black queer person, something authentic that spoke about our struggles with structured white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia but also the adversity we deal with within our own Black & Brown families and communities to be loved, respected and accepted.”

View the trailer for BLACK AS U R a micheal rice film at www.blackasur.com. 

Follow for updates on the film via the Instagram page @blackasurdocumentary and hashtag #blackasur

If you are a member of the media and interested in viewing a screener of the documentary please contact the media reps below.

About the Film:
‘BLACK AS U R a micheal rice film’ poses to Black America a highly confrontational and much-avoided question. Why do we as a people protest against racial injustice, but disregard the injustices experienced by black queer people? After all, we are just as black as you are. BLACK AS U R is the first step in confronting the African American community about queerphobia, via the seering stories of queer black people.

About the Director:
Micheal Rice is a filmmaker, producer, choreographer, and creative director for stage and film. His uncompromising vision is to bring the stories and art of LGBTQ communities of color to the forefront of society. Rice has over ten years of experience working across multiple platforms, from television to regional theatre. 

His debut documentary, 'parTy boi, black diamonds in ice castles' (awarded ‘Best Documentary’ at the prestigious Pan-African Film Festival in 2020) sparked intense controversy and generated a much-needed dialogue among urban LGBTQ communities of color about self-love, affirmation, substance abuse, and HIV infection. Micheal’s work is a fusion of art and activism from behind the lens.

Media Contacts:

Tanisha Colon-Bibb, Rebelle Agency
tanisha@therebelleagency.com
+1 929 353 2400

Alvin Woods, The Media Model
alvin@themediamodel.com
+1 (347) 949-8172

###