From the Archive of Allegra
Get Used to It!
Forty Years of Queer Resistance
Saturday, March 21, 6:30pm
Automata welcomes queer documentarian Allegra for an evening of rare footage and conversation. Since 1989, Allegra has been on the front lines of resistance movements, from queer rights to women’s rights to anti-war protests. Their rarely seen footage includes ACT UP protests and demos in NYC from ‘89-’94, gay prides, and numerous marches on Washington, plus excerpts from their groundbreaking work at MTV, Channel One, and CurrentTV. Together, Allegra has built a powerful 40 year portrait of struggle, celebration and everyday queer life in America. Allegra will be at Automata screening selections from their video archive and telling stories about how it came together. Join us before the presentation for refreshments and a small exhibition of art and ephemera from Allegra’s private collection.
About the Artist
Queer, Queens-bred Allegra (they/she) is a multi-award winning documentary filmmaker, with work spanning generations and genres over forty years. After starting at MTV NEWS in the mid-80s, Allegra pioneered accessible news to teenagers at CHANNEL ONE with then-unknown journalists Anderson Cooper and Lisa Ling. There, Allegra won a PEABODY AWARD for documentary short A DECADE OF AIDS, and continued to create compelling shorts covering everything from teens in prison to parental abductions.
In the late 90s, Allegra next went digital, helping launch Digital Entertainment Network, then CURRENTTV for AL GORE, and then OWN for OPRAH WINFREY, winning two digital Emmys for this work.
They are currently in pre-production on feature-length documentary, spanning 40 years of queer liberation through the lens of their personal archive.