BELLY
1998. 96 min. Directed by Hype Williams.
Tickets here: https://www.ifccenter.com/films/belly/
Curator and writer Legacy Russell, with writer and multi-disciplinary artist Anaïs Duplan, present the controversial and visually riveting neo-noir, BELLY (1998). Childhood friends Sincere (Nas) and Buns (DMX) build an empire of drug trafficking and backstabbing. But Sincere grows weary of their lifestyle, while Buns sinks deeper and deeper into bigger, riskier deals. After an arrest, the cops offer him a deal - assassinate the head of a Muslim group or life in prison. Sincere imagines leaving the drug trade and moving to Africa. Though he’s never been, he is motivated by a fantasy of diasporic homecoming; the idea that escape is possible and there is a place to belong. At its release, the now cult classic was banned from being shown in basketball player Magic Johnson’s theater chain due to “negative and violent depictions of African Americans.”
Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the Executive Director & Chief Curator of The Kitchen. Formerly she was the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Russell holds an MRes with Distinction in Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London with a focus in Visual Culture. Her academic, curatorial, and creative work focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual. Russell’s written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow, and a recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award. Her first book is Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020). Her second book, BLACK MEME, is forthcoming via Verso Books.
Anaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of forthcoming book I NEED MUSIC (Action Books, 2021), a book of essays, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). He has taught poetry at Bennington College, Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, amongst others. As an independent curator, he has facilitated curatorial projects in Chicago, Boston, Santa Fe, and Reykjavík. He was a 2017-2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2016, he founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa City's artist-run organization Public Space One.
Queer|Art|Film is supported by HBO and presented in partnership with IFC.