Filmmakers and Producers

Leah Gilliam

Leah Gilliam (they/she), who also uses the moniker LFranklin, is fascinated with emergent systems and how things work. A multi-hyphenate artist and designer, LFranklin has channeled their curiosity into a wide-ranging career at the intersection of creativity, technology, and collaboration. Currently, LFranklin is the senior strategy & design officer at Lambent Foundation and board chair of Out in Tech, a 30,000-strong volunteer community uniting LGBTQIA techies.

AVAILABLE FROM TWN

Now Pretend
Leah Gilliam
1992, 11 min., BW, US
Now Pretend is an experimental investigation into the use of race as an arbitrary signifier. Drawing upon language, personal memories and the 1959 text, "Black Like Me", it deals with Lacan's "mirror state" theories of beauty and the movement from object to subject....

Sapphire and the Slave Girl
Leah Gilliam
1995, 17 min., BW, US
This film is loosely based on the 1950's British detective film SAPPHIRE, in which two Scotland Yard detectives investigate the murder of a young woman who is passing for white. Referencing everyone from Marlowe to Shaft, SAPPHIRE AND THE SLAVE GIRL situates its analysis in the persona of the hard-b...

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