Meet Mama Gloria. Chicago’s Black transgender icon Gloria Allen, now in her 70s, blazed a trail for trans people like few others before her. Emerging from Chicago’s South Side drag ball culture in the 1960s, Gloria overcame traumatic violence to become a proud leader in her community. Most famously, she pioneered a charm school for young transgender people that served as inspiration for the hit play Charm. Luchina Fisher’s empathic and engaging documentary is not only a portrait of a groundbreaking legend, but also a celebration of unconditional love, the love Gloria received from her own mother and that she now gives to her chosen children. And it is driven by the love that Luchina has for her teenage transgender daughter, Gia.
LUCHINA FISHER (she/her) is an Emmy® award-winning director, producer and writer whose work is at the intersection of race, gender and identity. Her latest film, the short documentary THE DADS, about five fathers of trans kids bonding on a weekend fishing trip, won the 2024 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Program and received GLAAD’s Special Recognition Award. The film was executive produced by Dwyane Wade and acquired by Netflix. Her feature directorial debut MAMA GLORIA, about a Black transgender elder activist, was a 2022 GLAAD Media Award nominee 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. Her new project about the unsung history of Black queer presence in music was the winner of the 2023 PitchBLACK Film Forum. Fisher, who started her career as a journalist, is also the director of two scripted short films and has written and produced several nationally broadcast documentaries. She also teaches documentary filmmaking at Yale University.
