Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Black Lives Matter: Luchina Fisher with Mama Gloria
Friday, February 26, 2021 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM EST
Online Location
Chicago’s Black transgender icon Gloria Allen, now in her 70s, blazed a trail for trans people like few others before her. Emerging from Chicago’s South Side drag ball culture in the 1960s, Gloria overcame traumatic violence to become a proud leader in her community. Most famously, she pioneered a charm school for young transgender people that served as inspiration for the hit play Charm.
Luchina Fisher’s empathic and engaging documentary is not only a portrait of a groundbreaking legend, but also a celebration of unconditional love, the love Gloria received from her own mother and that she now gives to her chosen children. And it is driven by the love that Luchina has for her teenage transgender daughter, Gia.
Luchina Fisher is an award-winning writer, director and producer. Her feature directorial debut, MAMA GLORIA, about a trailblazing Black transgender elder activist, premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival, won Best of Fest at CineOdyssey and the Jury Award for Best Documentary at Teaneck International, and will be broadcast on PBS in 2021.
Prior to that, she co-executive produced and co-wrote the critically acclaimed feature documentary BIRTHRIGHT: A WAR STORY, which appeared in more than 70 theaters nationwide, qualified for Oscar consideration and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. She is the director of two short films and has written and produced several nationally broadcast documentaries as well as numerous segments for television.
Luchina began her career as a journalist and has written for People, the Miami Herald, The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine and ABCNews.com. She has also co-authored or ghostwritten several books. Luchina is a Sisters in Cinema Documentary Fellow and a member of Brown Girl Doc Mafia and the Black Documentary Collective.
See the film website here.
"Luchina Fisher on Her Trans Inclusive Documentary, Parenting and LGBTQ Allyship" Read this interview.
See another interview with Luchina Fisher here.
Mama Gloria is a co-production of Little Light Productions and Black Public Media with major funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It has received additional support from Sisters in Cinema, SouthPaw Video Productions, the 2020 Athena Film Festival’s Works in Progress Program and Women Make Movies Production Assistance Program.
See the trailer here:
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For more information:
Samantha Sinagra sbeach2@gmu.edu, Program and Academic Manager, Film at Mason
Cynthia Fuchs cfuchs@gmu.edu, Director, Visiting Filmmakers Series at Mason; Interim Director, Film at Mason
