Happy Hour with Rashaad Newsome and Johnny Symons

Celebrating the SXSW Premiere of their New Film “Assembly”

On Sunday, March 9, from 3-5pm, join internationally acclaimed artist Rashaad Newsome and director Johnny Symons on The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center Rooftop for a SXSW Happy Hour celebrating the premiere of their new film Assembly. The event will feature a short Q+A with Newsome, Symons, and moderator Marissa Shrum, as well as a DJ set by Lidia Beatz and complimentary drinks.

Premiering as part of SXSW 2025 official programming, Assembly follows Newsome as he transforms a former military facility into a visionary utopia. Featuring dancers, musicians, poets, and a non-binary AI named Being, the project explores Black and queer identity, systemic injustice, and resilience. Performers confront marginalization through art, creating community and challenging oppression. With performances honoring Black trans women, the Black queer community’s response to the AIDS crisis, and vogue fem as a global art form, Assembly highlights collective creativity’s power to unite. Through immersive visuals and decolonization workshops, the film reveals how art fosters solidarity, strength, and liberation.

Assembly screens multiple times during SXSW, including a 6pm screening following this event at Violet Crown Cinema. To attend an Assembly screening a SXSW Platinum Badge or Film & TV Badge is required. Click here for more information and a full film screening schedule.

Guests to this event can also explore The Contemporary Austin’s current exhibitions—Jiab Prachakul: Sweet Solitude, Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers, and HOST: Tenant of Culture.

About Dr. Rashaad Newsome

Dr. Rashaad Newsome’s work blends several practices, including filmmaking, animation, collage, sculpture, photography, music, writing, artificial intelligence, community organizing, and performance, to explore the intersections of these mediums and challenge traditional narratives and techniques. Drawing from diasporic traditions of improvisation, Newsome incorporates elements from advertising, the internet, art history, and Black and Queer culture to produce counter-hegemonic works that oscillate between social practice and abstraction.

Rashaad has exhibited and performed in galleries, museums, institutions, and festivals throughout the world, including Hayward Gallery (London), The Studio Museum in Harlem (NYC), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), The Sundance Film Festival, The National Museum of African American History and Culture (DC), The Park Avenue Armory Drill Hall (NYC), The Whitney Museum (NYC), Brooklyn Museum (NYC), MoMAPS1 (NYC), Museum of the African Diaspora (SF, CA), SFMOMA (CA), New Orleans Museum of Art (LA), CA2M Centro de Arte dos de Mayo (Spain), The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture (Moscow), Ar/Ge Kunst, (Italy), and MUSA (Vienna).

About Johnny Symons

Johnny Symons is an Emmy-nominated independent documentarian whose films focus on social justice and LGBTQ issues. His film Daddy & Papa, about the personal, cultural, and political impact of gay men raising children, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, aired on PBS and international television, and garnered more than a dozen festival best documentary and audience awards. Ask Not, an award-winning feature-length documentary about the impact of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the US military, broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens, and screened for Congress at the US Capitol. His feature documentary, Out Run, which profiles the only LGBTQ political party in the world, premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and won Best Cinematography at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival before airing nationally on public television.

Currently, Johnny is a Professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University, where he coordinates the MFA program. He is also the director and co-founder of the Queer Cinema Project. He was Steering Committee Co-Chair and is a longstanding member-owner of New Day Films.

About Marissa Shrum

Marissa Shrum is the Founder of Remember, I Love You (RILY), a cultural intelligence and community impact studio. Trained as a racial justice and youth educator, nurtured as a strategist and creative leader, Marissa works at the intersection of creativity and social change. She has activated pioneering work around sustainability, inclusion and fueling economic opportunity for creators of color. Her mission is to leverage business intelligence and creativity to make the world more joyful and just. Listed as one of Adweek’s “Creative 100” and Business Insider’s “30 Most Creative Women in Advertising,” she has a reputation for generating big ideas that successfully lead brands, both established and emerging, into new cultural territory. Throughout her career she has worked with the likes of Netflix, Target, We The Urban, artist collective For Freedoms, Impossible Foods, and Google. She is from Chattanooga, TN and lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.