In collaboration with the black gay poet Essex Hemphill, Marlon Riggs has produced what is sure to become a landmark film in the history of gay cinema, eschewing traditional documentary forms with a fascinating combination of elements poetry, personal testimony, rap, dance and drama.

Tongues Untied confronts the silence of pain, the grin-and-bear-it silence of the unacknowledged and tongue-tied. Derogatory accusations, judgements and jokes that abound in American culture are confronted head-on. It's an impassioned and provocative work that "slams you in the stomach while its poetry caresses your cheek".
- (TB)