Underground Intimacy is a program showcasing two films tracing the textures and contradictions spaces of Black queer nightlife, kinship, and becoming—examining how community forms and how visibility is negotiated. Shakedown and a_blurred_fluxx_00.avi illuminate how Black queer life persists and evolves in spaces deliberately built away from scrutiny—spaces shaped by pleasure, improvisation and intentionality, rooted history and emergent possibility.
Shakedown will play first with a_blurred_fluxx_00.avi proceeding afterwards and be sure to stay afterwards for an in-person Q&A with Osadolor Osawemwenze (director of a_blurred_fluxx_00.avi).
Shakedown
Leilah Weinraub, 2018, USA, 72 min
SHAKEDOWN is the story of Los Angeles’ black lesbian strip club scene and its genesis. Owned and operated by women, underground and illegal in nature, the club Shakedown is the darker, faster, younger iteration of this dance culture. The film is a window into this world. Shakedown emerged from a post-RIOTS, post-OJ, post-integration but still very racially divided Los Angeles. In this divided city Shakedown is an independent, all black and all female cash economy. SHAKEDOWN chronicles the explicit performances and personal relationships of the party’s dancers and organizers including Ronnie-Ron, Shakedown Productions’ creator and emcee; Mahogany, the legendary “mother” of the community; Egypt, their star performer; and Jazmine, the “Queen” of Shakedown.
a_blurred_fluxx_00.avi (Director’s cut)
Osadolor Osawemwenze, 2024, USA, 37 min
Across Dallas, the Bay Area, and New York City, eleven Blackqueer folks engage in layered conversations and candid everyday moments of joy, melancholy, introspection, euphoria, loneliness, and community-in-active-formation. Their complex minds revel in the journey of becoming Blackqueer and exploring their endless coming of age. As an experimental documentary, a_blurred_fluxx_00.avi delves deep into the nuance of today's Blackqueer youth. This dynamic and non-linear supercut provides a carefully crafted audiovisual space for the multiplicity of Blackqueer self-expressions. With a distinct yet nostalgic direction, editing style, and sound design embedded in low-resolution, a_blurred_fluxx_00.avi is a refreshing, necessary, and expansive film beyond time.
ARTIST BIO
Osadolor Osawemwenze is a New York-based director, visual maker, creative researcher, and sound designer born and raised in Dallas, Texas. As a Nigerian American, moments of discovery, reflection, and awareness of his positioning in this world influence their nostalgic Lo-Fi and D-I-Y videos and experimental sonic design. Through audiovisual works, Osadolor creates space to wonder/wander in abstraction, expansion, and fleeting clarity, finding the most inspiration in the multiplicity of herself that is not so clearly defined or categorizable. He recently graduated from Stanford University with an academic focus on the Black Diaspora, pop culture, Blackqueerness, media, art, and aesthetics. Osadolor's latest experimental documentary, a_blurred_fluxx_00.avi, which delves into the nuances of today's Blackqueer youth, was a finalist for Best Documentary (International Short Film) at the 2024 London Breeze Film Festival and has since been screened in various film festivals, theaters, and spaces. In their globally charting podcast, 'a coming of age, but irl,' Osadolor blurs introspection and conversation through uniquely crafted sonic experiences.