‘Smoke, Lilies & Jade:' Queer Harlem Renaissance Short To Make Atlanta Debut At Out On Film
After a successful world premiere at Outfest in Los Angeles, the cast and creative team behind the new short film “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” are preparing to screen their lush queer Harlem Renaissance drama for Atlanta audiences during the annual Out On Film Festival on September 26, at Landmark Midtown Arts Cinema. Directed and produced by married filmmaking duo Quincy LeNear Gossfield and Deondray Gossfield (The DL Chronicles, FLAMES), and adapted for the screen by writer Robert Philipson from Richard Bruce Nugent's short story by the same name. The film also includes voice narration by Emmy award winner Billy Porter (POSE, Cinderella).
Set in 1926 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” follows Alex (Xavier Avila) a young artist of the Harlem Renaissance as he flirts with the idea of bisexuality through posturing and conversations he has with his girlfriend, Melva (Alexandra Grey), and his Bohemian mentor, Raymond (Harry Fowler). Upon meeting Beauty (Ernesto Reyes), a Latin man who pursues Alex with poetry and fire, desires are heightened. The music of a concert performance breaks the floodgates of Alex's desires, and he finds himself torn between Melva and Beauty.
A semi-autobiographical retelling of Nugent’s own experience as a married man who publicly identified as bisexual—” Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” is the first positive expression of same-sex desire in American literature,” according to an interview with screenwriter Robert Philipson for PRIDE. Having first appeared in the one-issue Harlem Renaissance publication “FIRE!!,” and subsequently censored and deemed inappropriate because of its homosexual themes, Nugent’s exploration of bisexuality in his work and lived experience as someone who identified publicly with a sexual identity other than heterosexual was unheard of in the late 1920s.
“If you're queer and you're Black, you kind of think we just popped out of thin air somewhere here recently,” Deondray says. “This notion of out and proud and breaking down doors happened long before we came along. We've been existing in these spaces boldly for many years and the Harlem Renaissance is just one of those periods.”
“Nugent was the Lil Nas X of the Harlem Renaissance,” Quincy says. “He was very bold and open and scared the hell out of people when he would talk and write about being bisexual or being queer during the Renaissance. And not many of those artists were out at the time or even talking about it. It was too taboo of a subject. They were living it, but they were putting forth the proper face.”
“If you’re queer and you’re Black, you kind of think we just popped out of thin air somewhere here recently. This notion of out and proud and breaking down doors happened long before we came along. We’ve been existing in these spaces boldly for many years and the Harlem Renaissance is just one of those periods.”
Although Nugent’s story on which the short film is based was written and released towards the beginning of the 20th century, the Gossfields tell The Reckoning that the issues faced by queer Black men during Nugent’s day aren’t vastly different from what queer Black men experience today, or from what the Gossfields themselves experienced coming of age in the 80s and 90s.
“Quincy and I tell our story all the time—seven years of the closet—before we told anybody who we were,” Deondray says. “We were roommates for seven complete years and The DL Chronicles was born out of that experience. I love the fact that we've come so far, but then at the same time when you're talking about the Black gay community, we're still leaps and bounds away from everybody else. We're still dealing with these issues. We're still dealing with the closet and we're still dealing with self-identity.”
Nugent was also concerned about identity and how history would record his sexuality. As the film’s narrator, Billy Porter gives voice to Nugent’s concerns in the opening sequence of “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade.”
“I find it ironic that I may go down in history as something I never was—a homosexual. It was more complicated than that. Harlem was more complicated than that,” Porter says as Nugent.
“Richard Bruce Nugent's identity was bisexual,” Quincy says. “To me, it was less about him saying that he wasn't queer and more of him saying something he wasn't, which was a homosexual. His identity was bisexual. And that's a controversial place to be in both the straight and the gay community because it's not a very coveted position to hold for either.”
The bisexual erasure of Nugent’s identity along with his contribution to African-American literature alongside more widely known and celebrated Harlem Renaissance artists like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee Cullen, is a statement of the times in which they lived and how respectability politics and homophobia threatened the careers and legacies of brilliant Black queer minds. But times have changed.
‘Let’s Be Queer All The Way Around’
Actors Xavier Avila (Pretty Dudes, Reversal), Harry Fowler (Made For Love, Perfectly Natural), and Alexandra Grey (Transparent, Empire) give commanding performances in “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” and along with the Gossfields, are the realization of their ancestor’s wildest dreams. Grey, who is an openly trans actress, steps into the role of Melva, a cisgender character that would have normally been given to a cisgender actress. The Gossfields have turned the old Hollywood trope of cisgender actors playing trans characters (and being awarded) on its head.
“If we're going to do a queer project, let's be queer all the way around,” Deondray says. “Let's not stick to the expected. This is a cis role. So what? She's an actress. I don't think we minded the political boxes we were checking. But honestly, most of it was because we just wanted to work with Alexandra. It was like, well, why not? And shouldn't it be this way?”
The Gossfields tell The Reckoning that the short film was shot in three days in several Los Angeles locations in 2019, and until the very first day on set, they weren’t sure it would come together.
“So many things weren't done coming to shooting day, and we were petrified,” Deondray says. “Production designers are crucial for a period piece and we didn't have one for like 48 hours before our first shoot day. So it was scary. We weren't fully cast yet. It was a lot. Every time I see it, I'm like, I don't know how we pulled this off.”
Having talented and emerging actors like Avila and Fowler certainly contributed to the magic on screen.
“Harry [Fowler] is great,” Quincy says. “And then he also had a look that felt like he was from that time. So he kind of came to us as that package and he did a great job.”
Fowler says that in his portrayal of sexually fluid character Raymond, he only “aspired to be truthful.”
“Richard Bruce Nugent’s identity was bisexual. To me, it was less about him saying that he wasn’t queer and more of him saying something he wasn’t, which was a homosexual. His identity was bisexual. And that’s a controversial place to be in both the straight and the gay community because it’s not a very coveted position to hold for either.”
“I know that Raymond's story is somebody's story. I want to be truthful with him cause I know it's going to touch someone. So nothing is really off-limits for me, as long as we're grounded in truth,” Fowler says.
Of Avila, Deondray says he captured both the naiveté and confidence required to play the lead character, Alex.
“It's two complete contradictions, but this person sort of had to walk with that. And that's Xavier,” Deondray says.
Avila tells The Reckoning that he was “infatuated” with the script after reading it and couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into the material after realizing that it checked all the boxes for him as an actor.
“Does it speak to my heart? Is this something I want to use my voice and my platform for big or small? People think you don't have a platform if you don't have 20 million followers. I’ve got one life and one voice and I'm going to use it for things that matter,” Avila says.
The Gossfields say they hope Black LGBTQ youth, in particular, will learn they have a rich queer history that pre-dates social media that they may not have been aware of before viewing “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade.”
“We have a way of walking differently when we know we came from somewhere,” Deondray says. “And it's no different when you're queer and Black. When you know you came from somewhere, somebody came and did this before you, it gives you a different walk.”
Editor’s Note: “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” will screen in conjunction with Gossfields Tribeca Film Festival selection “FLAMES” and George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue.” Tickets can be purchased here. CNP is an executive producer of “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade.”
