Growing up in Greenville, S.C., filmmaker Tiona. M. struggled with her identity as an African American lesbian in a traditional Southern town.

"There wasn't a lot of visibility in the area; there was a lot of prejudice," she says. "I wanted to do something that gave women, especially lesbians of African descent, a voice."

That feeling inspired her documentary "Black./Womyn.: Conversations With Lesbians of African Descent," which will screen Saturday at Bennett College in Greensboro. The film is part of the school's annual Africana Women's Studies/Womanist Religious Studies Summit.

"There has not been enough dialogue on homosexuality in the black community," says Valerie Ann Johnson, director of Africana women's studies at Bennett College. "It hasn't been realized, and we need to take opportunities to talk about those issues."

Tiona. M.'s film features a series of interviews with nearly 50 African American lesbians ages 18 to 60 who talk about their lives and a variety of topics including coming out, sexuality and religion, marriage, patriarchy and visibility in media and homophobia.

"I wanted it to be intergenerational," she says. "It was a key goal of mine because within the black lesbian community, these conversations aren't had. I have students, teachers, mothers, grandmothers, women of all different professions and backgrounds."

Showing diversity among the women in the film also was important to help break stereotypes about lesbians of African descent.

Her subjects include poet/author Cheryl Clarke, filmmaker/activist Aishah Shahidah Simmons, filmmaker Michelle Parkerson, hip-hop duo KIN and author Fiona Zedde.

"Visually, it's a cool way to see the women," Tiona. M. says. "Just to see the different faces and challenge the ideas of what a black lesbian looks like and what they do in their life, I wanted to dispel a lot of the myths about black lesbians."

As a youth, Tiona. M. had a lot of questions and feelings that needed to be addressed, but she had nowhere to turn for answers. She hopes the film can help open a dialogue for young women like her, as well as their loved ones.

"I wanted to make a film that could've been useful for my younger self," she says. "It's a film I want to present to younger black lesbians who have questions about things, to see women at different stages in their lives, to see their sexuality not interfering at all with their success. And their families can see the film and get answers to questions that they don't feel comfortable asking."

The filmmaker says she was pleasantly surprised to be invited to screen her film at this event because it's being held at a religious college in a Southern town. But event co-convener Johnson thinks there's no better place for this kind of dialogue.

"If we can't talk about it at a women's college, where can we talk about it?" Johnson says. "This is part of the activism in women's studies, and as scholars, to talk about things that may make us uncomfortable, we use our scholarship to understand."

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