100 Boyfriends Mixtape (The Demo)

Directed by Brontez Purnell

Set in an urban fairytale, DeShawn (an unlikely anti-hero) is smack-dabbing in the middle of a peculiar crossroads. He is haunted by the ghosts of one hundred men: ex-“boyfriends,” in addition to the ghosts of everyone they dated. His days are filled with spiraling epiphanies and lucid, reckless bohemianism fueled by systemic poverty and HIV ennui. In this particular sketch he is relating his philosophy of the world to an unknown caller on his landline telephone while magically shrink-fitting a new pair of jeans that he recently shoplifted from Levi’s. Commissioned by Visual AIDS in 2017 as part of ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS, a program of seven videos prioritizing Black narratives within the ongoing AIDS epidemic curated by Erin Christovale and Vivian Crockett.