Presented in Cooperation with the Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley. There is a silence that surrounds many lives, a silence of fear and of pain. Marlon Riggs' Tongues Untied is about the silence which envelops the lives of black gay men. This brave and exhilarating tape is no plaintive first whisper, but a roar in the face of adversity. It is a loquacious attempt to break free of the homophobia and racism that mute the possibilities for human fulfillment. Riggs, a lecturer in the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley who is best known for his provocative videotape Ethnic Notions, has abandoned traditional media forms for a poetic pastiche that has the emotional uplift of the Blues and the gut-wrenching impact of reportage. The words of gay poets, personal testimony, rap, drama, and archival footage are woven together with a seductive palette of video effects. Riggs' autobiographical confessions tell of a man adrift as both a black and a homosexual. Ostracized from the circles of his yearning, he finds himself exiled and alone, the object of dual hatreds. This personal vision is given greater breadth by placing its roots in the larger social 'scape. Here is an urgent report from a world where prejudice is compounded, where politically torn communities turn their despair inward to oppress their own. Pulsing like a fevered heartbeat, Tongues Untied lashes out at injustice while it finds beauty in the struggle for dignity. Challenging a long-held silence, Marlon Riggs dares to speak the first words that would conjure a life into being: "Black men loving black men is the revolutionary act." Steve Seid Affirmation, Riggs' newest videotape, will be presented in its world premiere.