About this Event
JASON AND SHIRLEY REVISITED (Stephen Winter, 2015/2025, 84 min, DCP)
In 2015, director Stephen Winter followed up his legendary 1996 debut CHOCOLATE BABIES with another provocative, ahead-of-its-time experiment that forcefully creates space for queer Black perspectives where none existed before. JASON AND SHIRLEY reimagines the shooting of the 1967 documentary landmark PORTRAIT OF JASON as a power struggle between brilliant, manipulative director Shirley Clarke (Sarah Schulman) and her subject Jason Holliday (Jack Waters), a Black gay performer whose complexities far exceed the space Clarke’s camera affords him.
Mirroring PORTRAIT OF JASON, Winters shot JASON AND SHIRLEY in a single, marathon 12-hour improv session, opening up the insular world of Clarke’s film through historical context, imaginative play, and impassioned critique. Upon its original release in 2015, JASON AND SHIRLEY met with a deeply polarized reception, leading Winter to put the film away essentially unfinished. A decade later, Winter and editor Ned Stresen-Reuter returned to the material, reshaping the 2015 film into something even more incisive and engrossing.
For this screening of JASON AND SHIRLEY REVISITED, Block Cinema will welcome filmmaker Stephen Winter and actor Sarah Schulman for a post-film discussion with Lauren Michele Jackson, Assistant Professor of English at Northwestern.
Cosponsored by the Chicago International Film Festival and presented with sponsorship from the department of English and the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and with support from the Black Arts Consortium, the Black Studies Department, the Performance Studies Department, the Radio/Television/Film Department, the School of Communications, and the Screen Cultures Program at Northwestern.
About the Guest
Stephen Winter is an award-winning filmmaker, director, producer, and writer. His debut feature film Chocolate Babies (1996) was restored in 2021 by UCLA/Outfest and twice featured on the Criterion Channel. Stephen produced Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (2004) which premiered at Sundance; and directed season 1 and 2 of the series The Space Within (2023-26), starring and co-produced by Jessica Chastain for Audible. His second feature film Jason and Shirley (2015) starring and co-written by Sarah Schulman and Jack Waters, premiered at BAMCinemaFest and the Museum of Modern Art. The new edition Jason and Shirley Revisited premiered at NewFest in 2025 for a 2026 roadshow. Stephen has worked on films with Lee Daniels, Allan Hughes, Gus Van Sant, Xan Cassavetes, Jim Lyons, John Cameron Mitchell and Soledad O’Brien. Playwright Jeremy O. Harris has called Stephen “the father of modern Black Queer cinema.”
Event venue & nearby stays
Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, United States
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