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Honoring Jim Hubbard, Tourmaline, and James Wentzy

June 3, 6pm-9pm

VAVA hits the big screen

Grab your popcorn and a cocktail (or two) and join us in honoring the achievements and impact of Jim Hubbard, Tourmaline, and James Wentzy as VAVA steps into the theatre for an evening of screenings and celebration. Hosted by the incomparable Viva Ruiz.

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JIM HUBBARD has been making films since 1974. He made United in Anger: A History of ACT UP, a feature length documentary on ACT UP, the AIDS activist group, which won Best Documentary at MIX Milano and Reel Q Pittsburgh LGBT Film Festival and has played at over 150 museums, universities and film festivals worldwide.

Sarah Schulman and he completed 187 interviews as part of the ACT UP Oral History Project. He, along with James Wentzy, created a 9-part cable access television series based on the Project.

He co-founded MIX - the New York Queer Experimental Film Festival. Under the auspices of the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, he created the AIDS Activist Video Collection at the New York Public Library.

Full bio and more information here

TOURMALINE: A Guggenheim Fellow and TIME100 Honoree, Tourmaline is an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose work spans high art and pop culture. Tourmaline’s art is in the permanent collections of The Met, MoMA, Tate, and the Whitney, among other museums. Her influence in contemporary art has also been showcased in both the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial. Tourmaline’s award-winning films — including the critically acclaimed Happy Birthday, Marsha!; Salacia; Atlantic is a Sea of Bones; and Mary of Ill Fame — have been widely recognized for their unique blend of historical narrative and speculative futurism.

Tourmaline’s commercial film projects have premiered at the MTV Video Music Awards, and she has led the creative for brand campaigns with Fortune 500 companies, such as a film series presented by Unilever on the topic of LGBTQ+ communities in rural America.

Tourmaline’s portfolio also extends to fashion: her trans-inclusive swimwear line with Chromat debuted at New York Fashion Week with glowing praise from Vogue.

Tourmaline’s forthcoming book MARSHA (May 2025) is the first definitive biography of the revolutionary Black trans activist Marsha P. Johnson. It received a Starred Review by Publishers Weekly and was selected by The New York Times for inclusion in the Nonfiction Spring Book Preview.
The recipient of the BlackStar Luminary Award, Stonewall Visionary Award, HBO Queer Art Prize, and the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel, Tourmaline crafts worlds across a variety of media that center pleasure, possibility, and transformation. She is a sought-after speaker at institutions like Princeton, Yale, MoMA, The Met, UC Berkeley, Smith College, and Outfest, and has been frequently featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Artforum, and TIME Magazine.

A former leader of the Trans Health Campaign at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Tourmaline has built a career rooted in community organizing and trans liberation, and is a transformative voice in movements for racial, economic, and gender justice.

Tourmaline is a graduate of Columbia University and lives in Miami with her partner Cameronand their cat Jean.

JAMES WENTZY is known as an AIDS activist and documentary filmmaker associated with ACT UP throughout the 1990s.

James Wentzy was born October 21, 1952, in Brookings, South Dakota, and moved to New York City after graduating the Southern Illinois University film program in 1976. Early on in his New York life Wentzy worked as a film cinematographer for the porn industry, then later as a printer for various photographers. In 1990 he was diagnosed with HIV. That year he joined ACT UP. His participation in ACT UP consists of angry, raw, and thorough coverage mostly consisting of unedited shots with addition of activist interviews who cover the topics discussed in the show.

By 2013, his collection developed into an extensive archive with hundreds of hours of recordings.

Wentzy's work became the subject of a documentary entitled Books of James, which was produced by Ho Tam, a video artist. Drawing upon Wentzy's personal notebooks, this video traces his life story.

Wentzy also worked as the producer of DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists). DIVA TV was founded in 1989 by a video documentary group along-side ACT UP. Their objective was to videotape public testimony and community activism to motivate the fight against AIDS. Fight Back, Fight AIDS was his first feature-length documentary. Wentzy's goal within DIVA TV was to create a "national media network devoted to reflecting the struggles, needs and state of mind of people affected by AIDS."

Wentzy also served as a video archivist for the Estate Project's AIDS Activist Video Preservation Project for the New York Public Library.

He served as cinematographer on the 2012 documentary film about ACT UP, United in Anger: A History of ACT UP.