All About Love Film Series: Shorts
This special three-part film series is presented in conjunction with the Barnes Foundation’s latest exhibition, Mickalene Thomas: All About Love. Curated by BlackStar’s founder and CEAO Maori Karmael Holmes, each screening explores a theme reflected in All About Love—kinship, femininity, and desire.
Kinship is the focus of today’s short films, which include Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman (2012), Mickalene Thomas’s directorial debut. These films explore the idea that what is past is also present and celebrate the art created by Black people across time. After the screening, a Q&A with some of the featured filmmakers will be moderated by James Claiborne, deputy director for community engagement at the Barnes.
This program includes access to the Barnes collection and Mickalene Thomas: All About Love.
Where
Barnes Foundation
2025 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy
Philadelphia, PA 19130
When
Saturday, January 11
2-4 PM ET
What
A shorts block
Film Program
- One Magenta Afternoon (2022)
Directed by Vernon Jordan III
The lesson is love: when Les and his Pop-Pop play jazz, they summon six queer spirits and tumble through their memories.
Duration: 8 min.
Ladies Day (2018)
Directed by Abena Taylor-Smith
Amma spends the day getting braids at her local salon. Inside, she is greeted like an old friend. But when the conversation suddenly turns homophobic, she has a difficult decision to make: stay silent or stick up for herself.
Duration: 9 min.
Look Back at It (2023)
Directed by Felicia Pride
A 40-something single mother gets her groove back with a little assistance from her teenage daughter.
Duration: 12 min.
Mary of Ill Fame (2022)
Directed by Tourmaline
Mary of Ill Fame shapes a fictional story around Mary Jones, a Black trans woman and sex worker who was incarcerated in the 1830s for stealing a man’s wallet. The film imagines Jones in Seneca Village, an autonomous New York community of free Blacks and Irish immigrants located on the land occupied today by Central Park. Cutting between images of Jones in brutal confinement and in her picturesque Seneca Village home, the film builds a fantasy space of power, freedom, and pleasure that the actual Jones deserved.
Duration: 17 min. - Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman (2012)
Directed by Mickalene Thomas
The acclaimed artist's first film, Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, is a celebration of her mother and muse, Sandra Bush, who passed away in 2012. Thomas explores her mother’s memories and dreams, life experiences, and hopes for the present and future. On her inspiration for the film, Thomas said, “I want to continue to use her in my work as a way to investigate and grasp the understanding of beauty, success, and failure. She was six-one and modeled for most of her life. I want my work to represent her in the reality of who she was, but I also want to capture her strength and beauty.”
Duration: 23 min.
QueenS (2012)
Directed by Dream Hampton
Music video for THEESatisfaction’s “QueenS.”
Duration: 4 min.