Jason and Shirley Revisited

This film is an updated version of the 2015 film, featuring a radical approach to the volatile 12-hour shoot of the 1967 documentary Portrait of Jason. It takes place in the iconic Chelsea Hotel, where the original documentary blurred the lines between subject and storyteller.

The film centers on Jason Holliday, a sharp-witted Black gay man whose identity encompasses multiple personas, including performer, hustler, muse, and provocateur. The director Stephen Winter brings newly unearthed footage into the narrative, not to resolve contradictions but to amplify the conversation around them.

As time folds and power shifts throughout the film, viewers are invited to engage with the complexities of Jason's identity and the relationship between him and Oscar-winning filmmaker Shirley Clarke. This revisitation challenges the audience to reconsider what was left outside the frame in the original documentary.