PRAY AWAY premiered on Netflix in August, generating hundreds of reviews and press articles (such as the ones in Variety and The Guardian), and spearheading an engagement campaign to raise awareness about the dangers and human costs of conversion therapy.
Queer Cinema Project received more than $77,000 from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation and the estate of Barbara Hammer, allowing QCP to continue to support LGBTQ+ student storytelling and the research, education, and promotion of queer filmmaking at SFSU’s School of Cinema.
YOU CAN’T TAKE, an international dance video collaboration with the Ballet National de Marseille, the collective (La)Horde, and Lasseindra Ninja, produced by Rashaad Newsome and Johnny Symons, premiered in Beaux Arts.
BLACK MAGIC, a new performance video celebrating Black queer resiliency and strength by Rashaad Newsome, premiered in January at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in NYC, followed by a screening at Kampnagel in Hamburg, Germany. Johnny Symons was producer and DP.
Footage of Rashaad Newsome’s “Black Magic” will be projected on Times Square billboards just before midnight every evening in December. On December 10th, “Black Magic” will be performed live at Times Square, while the multichannel presentation of “Black Magic” is illuminating on the screens. This performance was captured for Johnny …
Congratulations to Your Mother’s Comfort for winning Best Documentary Feature at Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival. Your Mother’s Comfort, executive produced by Johnny Symons and directed by Adam Golub, had its world premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the premiere was virtual.
Pray Away, directed by Kristine Stolakis and executive produced by Johnny Symons, premieres at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival. The feature documentary chronicles former leaders of the “pray the gay away” movement as they contend with the aftermath unleashed by their actions, and follows a survivor who seeks healing and acceptance after more than …
Johnny Symons and Rashaad Newsome present a short work-in-progress clip of their documentary Get Your 10s at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. After the screening, legendary New York vogue dancer and film subject Omari Oricci Wiles led a vogue workshop.
Johnny Symons receives a grant from Catapult Film Fund for Hoodie. Catapult gives early support to propel projects forward that hold the promise of a story that should be uniquely told in film.
Five projects focusing on the American West including HOODIE have been selected to enter the IF/Then pitch competition sponsored by Tribeca Film Institute at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. The pitch will take place at UC Theater on the University of Montana Campus in Missoula, Montana from 3:00 pm – 5:00 …
