Karen Everett

Inspired by her mentor, Marlon Riggs, Karen Everett turns the camera on her love life and her remarkable community. This personal drama unfolds in scenes that are intimate and public, among women who play with gender roles, dress up and dress down, explore monogamy and polyamory, commiserate and celebrate. Exploring ways of loving that range from friendship to marriage to brief encounters of the passionate kind.

Framing Lesbian Fashion looks at the evolution of lesbian attire and identity – butch/femme, flannel, androgyny, cross-dressing and drag, queer fluorescent, S/M and leather, lipstick and more.

Incorporating archival material, revelatory verite footage, and clips from his own work, a documentary which chronicles the life and works of the black, openly gay filmmaker Marlon Riggs whose controversial body works exploded on the scene with his landmark 1989 film "Tongues Untied" (USA). Riggs specialized in films dealing mainly with African-American males and the nuances of sexuality as it relates to their cultural, religious, and social identity. A teacher and prolific documentarian, the outspoken artist, Riggs, eventually succumbed to an AIDS-related illness in 1994.

Incorporating archival material, revelatory verite footage, and clips from his own work, a documentary which chronicles the life and works of the black, openly gay filmmaker Marlon Riggs whose controversial body works exploded on the scene with his landmark 1989 film "Tongues Untied" (USA). Riggs specialized in films dealing mainly with African-American males and the nuances of sexuality as it relates to their cultural, religious, and social identity. A teacher and prolific documentarian, the outspoken artist, Riggs, eventually succumbed to an AIDS-related illness in 1994.

Inspired by her mentor, Marlon Riggs, Karen Everett turns the camera on her love life and her remarkable community. This personal drama unfolds in scenes that are intimate and public, among women who play with gender roles, dress up and dress down, explore monogamy and polyamory, commiserate and celebrate. Exploring ways of loving that range from friendship to marriage to brief encounters of the passionate kind.

Skilfully combining personal memoir with performances and lively group discussion, Everett reveals the complex dynamics at play in contemporary relationships between butch and femme lesbians. Drawing on her encounters with religion and psychology she poignantly recounts the spiritual reawakening she experienced while weathering the storms of an explosive love affair with a beautiful femme—an affair which precariously straddles the boundaries between obsession and passion, and yet is told with a disarming humour. Woven into this narrative are the insights of lesbian women talking butch-to-butch and femme-to-femme about yin/yang chemistry and a love that borders on worship.