Movies are shown in Westminster Hall at the McKinley Foundation. Westminster is located on the 2nd floor and may be accessed by elevator. Free and open to the public.
September 17: Mama Gloria
In collaboration with the Artists’ Alley exhibit To Survive on This Shore, McKinley Foundation will screen the documentary Mama Gloria on Friday, September 17 at 7:30 PM in Westminster Hall at the McKinley Foundation building. Conversation will follow the screening of Mama Gloria, facilitated by Sawyer Kemp.
About the film: Meet Mama Gloria. 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.
About the presenter: Sawyer Kemp (they/them) is a Chancellor’s postdoctoral research fellow in transgender studies at U of I. Their areas of research include contemporary performance, Shakespearean & early modern drama, and the role of “accessibility” in nonprofit arts industry. Sawyer’s current research project uses a transhistorical approach to imagine how contemporary social justice issues like homelessness, state violence, and dysphoria could inform and situate historical investigations of early and premodern gender nonconforming figures.