Film Screening: Out in the Night

Tuesday, April 21, 2015 5:30 pm-8:30 pm

[ URBN Center Annex - 3401 Filbert St ]

Click [here] to RSVP

Leeway Foundation and Bread & Roses Community Fund present Out in the Night, a documentary that tells the story of the New Jersey 4 - four young African American women who fought back against a violent attack by a stranger on a New York City street. As a result of their self-defense, the women are convicted in the courts and ridiculed by media. The film reveals how race, gender identity and sexuality are used to criminalize these women of color.

The film screening will be preceded by a trailer for the upcoming documentary FREE CeCe, about CeCe McDonald, a trans African American woman who survived a violent, racist, and transphobic attack, and served time in a men’s prison in Minnesota.

Out in the Night will screen at 5:30pm on Tuesday, April 21 at Drexel University's URBN Center Annex (3401 Filbert Street). After the screening, stay for a discussion with filmmaker blair dorosh-walther, Patreese Johnson (one of the New Jersey 4), Adrian Lowe from Hearts on a Wire (a collective of trans and gender variant people inside and outside of Pennsylvania prisons), and Celena Morrison from Trans Wellness Project and Sisterly LOVE; moderated by scholar-activist Heath Davis. 

This screening is part of RELEASE, an ongoing exhibition and program series that explores the intersection of gender justice and mass incarceration. RELEASE is co-presented by Bread & Roses Community Fund and the Leeway Foundation. RELEASE aims to provide shared spaces for women, transgender, and gender non-conforming survivors of the prison industrial complex, local artists, cultural producers, and activists to critically reflect and build power for change. The exhibit is on view at the Leeway Foundation through June 30. Exhibit Hours: By appointment only. Monday – Friday, 10:00am – 5:00pm. Please call 215.545.4078 to schedule your visit. (Venue is wheelchair accessible)

About Out in the Night

Out in the Night is a documentary that tells the story of a group of young friends, African American lesbians who are out, one hot August night in 2006, in the gay friendly neighborhood of New York City. They are all in their late teens and early twenties and come from a low-income neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. Two of the women are the focus – gender non-conforming Renata Hill, a single mother with a soft heart and keen sense of humor, and petite femme Patreese Johnson, a shy and tender poet.

About blair dorosh-walther

Director and Producer, blair dorosh-walther identifies as gender non-conforming and uses both male and female pronouns, is a social issue documentary director, experienced production designer, and artist with a passion for inspiring action for social justice through media. blair graduated with a BFA in Film from NYU and was awarded the Adam Balsano Award for social significance in documentary filmmaking for hir short documentary Metsi on water privatization’s impact on women in a South African township. His short documentary Cry Don’t Cry on bereavement experienced through the eyes of a diverse group of teenagers is distributed worldwide through Aquarius Videos and won the National Health Information Awards’ Silver Award in 2005. For Out in the Night, blair was awarded the Joyce Warshow Fund from Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a Special Jury Prize for Courage in Storytelling and Best Documentary – Audience Award from ImageOut Rochester, the Jury Award and Audience Award at the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Favorite Documentary at ReelQ Pittsburgh International LGBT Film Festival as well as a Film Independent Fast Track fellow in 2013, and was selected as a participant at the Sundance Producer’s Summit in 2012. Out in the Night is hir first feature documentary. blair has supported hir artistic career by working in direct care with adults living with developmental disabilities, mental illness, addiction, homelessness and HIV/AIDS for the past 12 years.

About Patreese Johnson

Patreese is a petite 4’11’’ 95 lbs, femme-identified poet. She is the youngest of four brothers and one sister. She grew up as the youngest on the block in her tight-knit community in Newark, New Jersey. She is fiercely empathetic with a big heart. While incarcerated she received her GED and ran a support group for women who were survivors of domestic violence. Since her release, she has enrolled at Essex County Community College, studying for Associates degree in Liberal Arts. Patreese dreams of opening a spa one day “so that women will have a place to take a break from the every-day struggles of life.” She is currently working as a part-time personal assistant to children’s author, Jacqueline Woodson.

About FREE CeCe

CeCe McDonald, a trans African American woman, survived a violent, racist and transphobic attack and served time in a men’s prison in Minnesota. Actress Laverne Cox is portraying an incarcerated trans woman in Orange is the New Black. Through their powerful voices, and investigative filmmaking, the feature length documentary film FREE CeCe confronts the issue of trans-misogyny and the epidemic of viole​nce surrounding trans women of color.

About Hearts on A Wire

Trans and gender variant people building a movement for gender self-determination, racial and economic justice, and an end to policing and imprisoning our communities.

About Celena Morrison

Celena Morrison is a member of the outreach team at the Trans* Wellness Project at the Mazzoni Center. She is originally from North Carolina and has resided in Philadelphia for approximately 6 years. Providing support, education, and building sisterhood throughout the trans community is a passion of hers and she looks forward to making a difference in her community. Celena has help create serveral workshops for Sisterly L.O.V.E., which included Intergenerational Dialogue workshop and professional Etiquette. 

About Heath Davis

Heath Davis is a scholar-activist whose work in classrooms, boardrooms, community centers, and media explores forms of discrimination that are marginalized by mainstream race, gender, and sexuality civil rights narratives. He is an educator and advocate for marginalized communities, inspiring and training young people in the art of institutional change. Davis’s current book project Sex Classification and (Trans)gender Discrimination interrogates the widespread, discriminatory use of sex classification in education, public accommodations, sports, and government policy. His recent work critiques how sex classification impacts our daily lives.  One of his recent publications examines how the Philadelphia grassroots activist organization Riders Against Gender Exclusion (RAGE) successfully pressured the public transit system SEPTA to eliminate their mandatory and discriminatory gender stickers. Davis is a past organizer of the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference and a current member of the Trans Masculine Advocacy Network (TMAN), a Philadelphia based mentoring and support group for people of color self-identifying along the trans-masculine spectrum.

Davis is also a member of the James Weldon Johnson Institute Working Group exploring convergences between the African American civil rights movement and the Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) civil rights movement. His publications include The Ethics of Transracial Adoption (Cornell, 2002), “Sex Classification Policies as Transgender Discrimination: An Intersectional Critique” (Perspectives on Politics), “Theorizing Black Lesbians within Black Feminist Theory: A Critique of Same-Race Street Harassment”(Politics and Gender), and “Navigating Race in the Market for Human Gametes” (The Hastings Center Report). He is an associate professor of political science at Temple University.

Image Credit: New Jersey 4, by Lex Non Scripta

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