HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT tells the unsung and unseen story of Black queer presence in the music industry through the stories of popular and lesser-known artists who shaped the music and culture we enjoy today.
HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT brings to life the stories of Black queer performers who have shaped our music and culture and influenced mainstream artists like David Bowie, Prince, the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Harry Styles. Moving between archival footage, interviews with artists and scholars, and verite footage of emerging Black queer artists navigating the industry today, and told against the backdrop of the social movements over the last two centuries, the feature documentary will show for perhaps the first time how Black queer artists were central to the development of nearly every genre of music, from gospel to rock, disco to pop, and house to hip-hop. Punctuating the film will be the electric performances and images of Black queer performers from the 1800s to the present.
LUCHINA FISHER is the Emmy Award-winning director and producer of THE DADS, about five fathers of trans kids bonding on a weekend fishing trip. The short documentary, executive produced by Dwyane Wade and acquired by Netflix, received the 2024 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Program and a Special Recognition Award from GLAAD. Her directorial debut, MAMA GLORIA, about a Black trans elder activist, was nominated for a 2022 GLAAD Media Award and broadcast on PBS. She is also the director of the award-winning short documentary TEAM DREAM, executive produced by Queen Latifah, and co-director of the award-winning feature documentary LOCKED OUT, about the barriers to Black homeownership. She is currently finishing a feature-length documentary with some of the dads from her Emmy-winning short and a project about the unsung history of Black queer presence in music, which won the 2023 PitchBLACK Film Forum. Luchina began her career as a journalist, writing for The Miami Herald, People and ABC News, and is a 2026 inductee of the North Carolina Media and Journalism Hall of Fame. She is a visiting professor in film at Fairfield University and has taught documentary filmmaking at Yale. She is a member of the Television Academy and serves on the board of New York Women in Film and Television.
Black Public Media's PitchBlack Film Forum 2023 - Winner
Firelight Media's William Greaves Production Grant 2024 - Grantee
Producer - Yvonne Welbon
Cast - Allison Russell
