The Gospel According to Andre with Kate Novack and Dario Calmese

"The Gospel According to André" is a captivating documentary that provides an intimate portrait of fashion industry legend André Leon Talley. Directed by Kate Novack, the film explores Talley's remarkable journey from his upbringing in the segregated South to becoming one of the most influential voices in fashion.

Following Talley's unparalleled career as a fashion editor, mentor, and tastemaker, the film delves into his groundbreaking work at publications like Vogue and his close relationships with legendary designers such as Karl Lagerfeld and Diane von Furstenberg.

The documentary also delves into Talley's complex personal life, highlighting his struggles and triumphs as a black man navigating the predominantly white world of high fashion, while also celebrating his unapologetic style and larger-than-life personality.

On June 20, join the Downtown Alliance for a screening of "The Gospel According to André" followed by a conversation with director Kate Novack and creative director, photographer, and design theorist Dario Calmese. Both intimately acquainted with Talley, Novack and Calmese will discuss the lasting impact of the film and Talley’s legacy within the fashion industry and beyond.

Tickets are $5 and include popcorn and a beverage. All proceeds will be donated to the Institute of Black Imagination.

Please note that seating is not assigned and seats will be chosen on a first come, first served basis.

Dario Calmese is an American creative director, photographer, and design theorist. His work   interrogates the mechanisms of cultural production and the ways in which image, environment and technology shape the lived experience. Spanning across the fields of photography, design, fashion, and performance, his practice aims at repopulating the voids within the construction of historical narrative and identity by leveraging the very systems that dictate how we come to know ourselves both collectively and individually. 

In 2020, Dario made history as the first-ever Black photographer to shoot a cover for Vanity Fair— in its 106-year existence — with his portrait of Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis. That same year, Calmese launched The Institute of Black Imagination (IBI), a design start-up that works to preserve, integrate, and cultivate the Black imagination through innovative and interactive experiences. IBI’s portfolio includes a widely-acclaimed podcast, a powerful online archive of Black creativity, and a forthcoming location at the Oculus World Trade Center, all of which tap into the “Pool of Black Genius” to share the visions of the modern iconoclasts taking the reins on cultural thought and innovation.

A 2023 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Calmese serves on the global advisory board for Estee Lauder Companies and is a professor at The New School’s Parsons School of Design in New York City. He is also an NYC Urban Design Forum Fellow, show director for the fashion brand Pyer Moss, and collaborated with Adobe Lightroom to design presets specifically for people of color.

@dario.studio

About The Institute of Black Imagination

The Institute of Black Imagination is a learning framework, designed to foster critical discourse around the exclusionary nature of design, particularly in the built environment.

It originated in 2018 as a library.  A library built around an acquisition of over 1,900 books from the personal archives of the great multi-hyphenate artist Geoffrey Holder.  As a dancer, choreographer, graphic artist, costume designer, actor, stage director, photographer, musician, composer, singer, sculptor, writer, and producer, Mr. Holder was Black imagination personified. 

In 2020, the Institute developed a podcast to incorporate Black and Brown voices around the broader concept of design thinking. However, the podcast transcends any one discipline, with each contributor forming a constellation in the galaxy of the Black Imagination.

@blackimagination
www.blackimagination.com

Kate Novack is an Emmy-nominated writer, director and producer of documentary films. Her most recent film, "Hysterical Girl" (New York Times Op-Docs, Grasshopper Film, 2020), revisits the only major case history that Sigmund Freud produced of a female patient, and considers the corrosive legacy of his theory of hysteria, 125 years later. "Hysterical Girl" was shortlisted for an Academy Award and nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a documentary. New Yorker critic Richard Brody described it as "extraordinary...strikes at the very foundations of the field of psychology, and the historical failure to believe victims which has not yet been righted." Following its selection as a world premiere by SXSW, the film was acquired by The New York Times’ Op-Docs, the short film arm of the paper’s opinion page, and Grasshopper Film.

Kate’s feature "The Gospel According to Andre" (Magnolia Pictures, 2018) was named one of the top ten Queer films of the year by Indiewire and nominated for best LGBTQ documentary of the year by the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. An intimate portrait of the legendary fashion editor Andre Leon Talley, "Gospel" traces Andre’s formative years growing up in the American South in the era of Jim Crow and his experience over four decades working in the fashion industry. The New York Times called the film “a cinematic ride” and Variety dubbed it “a deeply loving, frequently beautiful testament to the former Vogue editor who rose from humble beginnings in North Carolina to become arguably the high fashion world’s first major African-American tastemaker.” Following its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, "Gospel" won Best Documentary at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival and Best Feature Length Fashion Film at the Canadian International Fashion Film Festival. A former print journalist, Kate was a writer and producer on Page One: Inside the New York Times (Magnolia Pictures, Participant Media and History Films, 2011), an urgent portrait of The New York Times’ late media columnist David Carr and the existential challenges facing the news media. After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, Page One went on to become one of the highest-grossing theatrical documentaries of the year. CNN described it as “a film anyone who cares about the future should see” and it was nominated for two News & Documentary Emmys and a Critics Choice Award.

Over the past 15 years, Kate has worked in a producing or story role on several films, including the Emmy-nominated Ivory Tower (CNN Films/Participant Media/Samuel Goldwyn Films, 2014), The First Monday in May (Magnolia Pictures, 2016) and A Table In Heaven (HBO, 2008).