About

Noel Lawrence [director, writer]

Noel Lawrence makes, curates, distributes, and writes about film.

As alter ego J.X. Williams, Lawrence produced a body of audiovisual work that critiqued institutions and historical discourses of cinema. His films have been showcased at The LouvreIFFR, Slamdance, and Thessaloniki. His provocative work has been featured in The New York TimesWall Street Journal, and Vice as well as a book of collected essays on his filmography, J.X. Williams: Les Dossiers Interdits (Camion Noir, 2010). 

More recently, Lawrence has collaborated on projects with Bootsy Collins and Iggy Pop as well as teaming up with the Luis Buñuel Film Institute on a lecture/presentation on the influence of surrealism in mid-century advertising.  Noel also co-curates the Department of Anarchy film section at Slamdance.

Darius James [writer]

Darius James is an author, spoken-word artist, and expert on African-American folk culture. He is the author of five books. His debut novel Negrophobia (NYRB Classics) was just republished by the New York Review of Books. His follow-up book That’s Blaxploitation: Roots of the Badaasssss ‘Tude (St. Martins) was one of the pioneering works on the Blaxploitation genre of cinema.

After two decades in New York as a freelance journalist, Darius relocated to Berlin, Germany in 1998 where he worked as a radio host and theatre director. James also wrote and hosted The United States of Hoodoo, a road movie that traces the influence of voodoo on daily life and pop culture in the USA. The film premiered on Arte (Germany) in 2012. Currently, he is completing Aunt Katie’s Tales.]

Click  here   to download the EPK for Sammy-Gate.