Where Southern Soul Meets Memphis Magic
Explore our exclusive collaboration with La Panthère Studio, featuring the Memphis Music Issue + Vinyl LP, Limited Edition Southern Music Tee, and the Rhythm & Soul Tarot Deck!
Magazine
Issue 122, Fall 2023
Featuring new work from award-winning culture reporter Jewel Wicker; a personal essay from Logan Scherer; an exploration of Debbie Allen’s long directorial career by Jessica Lynne; and meditations on films new and old, our 2023 Film Issue dives deep into the craft of production, the nuance of screenwriting, and what makes a film’s legacy live on. Guest Editor Tayler Montague—a filmmaker, writer, curator, and contributing editor at the OA—interviews director, screenwriter, and actress Kasi Lemmons, whose films includes the biopic Harriet (2019) and the now-classic Eve’s Bayou (1997). The interview includes never-before-seen ephemera from Lemmons’s filmmaking career. Elsewhere, longtime contributors (John Jeremiah Sullivan) and those who are new to our pages (photographer Rahim Fortune, National Book Award winner Justin Phillip Reed) weave narratives that reach into the past and revel in the present joy, beauty, and intricacies of Southern cinema.
Guest Editor’s Letter: A Deep Wanting to Know
by Tayler Montague
POINTS SOUTH
Language of Hunger, by Clarissa Fragoso Pinheiro
Her Retirement, My Retirement, by Logan Scherer
A Louisiana Story, by Virginia Hanusik
Background Noise, by Jeremy Steen
Unspooling Norma Rae, by Kit Duckworth
Ja’Tovia Gary’s Cosmic Return, by Amarie Gipson
FEATURES
LOVE LETTER FROM KOKOMO
Filmmaker D. Smith’s documentary explores the lives of Black trans women
By Jewel Wicker
MADE FOR TV
On Polly and Debbie Allen’s directorial savvy
By Jessica Lynne
THE INTIMATE AND THE PUBLIC
On Les Blank and collaborative documentary
By Rahim Fortune
IS THIS SACRED GROUND?
A Q&A with Kasi Lemmons
By Tayler Montague
OMNIVORE
TOWARD A RADICAL CINEMATIC HORIZON
The unrealized works of Toni Cade Bambara and Gloria Naylor
by Randi Gill-Sadler
IMAGINING THROUGH FABRIC
The textiles and memories of Cameroon’s Muna Moto
by Qaman Omar
THE BLACK GIRL BEST FRIENDS AT THE SURVIVORS PARTY
by Justin Phillip Reed
FUGITIVE PIECES: In Old Wilmington
How the failed search for a silent film uncovered a lost musician of the Harlem Renaissance
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
JOY TO THE WORLD
From the web
by Adam Nayman
BodyPoetry: A Short Film
From the web
by Zandashé Brown
ART BY: Barry Yusufu, William Eggleston, Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber, Baldwin Lee, Sabrina Gshwandtner, Jules de Balincourt, Virginia Hanusik, Mike Reddy, Ja’Tovia Gary, Rahim Fortune, Adé Randle, Francesca Gabbiani, Feraul Fosso, Monet Alyssa, Beauford Delaney
COVER: Lady for Television, 2020, charcoal and acrylic on canvas by Barry Yusufu © The artist. Courtesy Unit London