''The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson'' is a 2017 American documentary film directed by

David France David Harry France, (born 30 June 1948) is an author, football historian and philanthropist. Throughout the past two decades, he has been the driving force behind numerous initiatives related to Everton Football Club including Gwladys Street's H ...

. It chronicles Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, prominent figures in gay liberation and

transgender rights movement The transgender rights movement is a movement to promote the legal status of transgender people and to eliminate discrimination and violence against transgender people regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health c ...

in New York City from the 1960s to the 1990s and co-founders of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. The film centers on activist Victoria Cruz's investigation into Johnson's death in 1992, which was initially ruled a suicide by police despite suspicious circumstances. It is France's second film, following ''

How to Survive a Plague ''How to Survive a Plague'' is a 2012 American documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of activist groups ACT UP and TAG. It was directed by David France, a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings. Fr ...

'' (2012).

Release

The film premiered in the documentary competition section at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

on April 21, 2017. In June 2017,

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

acquired worldwide rights to the film. The film was released on the streaming service on October 6, 2017.

Reception

On review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 96%, based on 28 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "''The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson'' uses its belated investigation into an activist's murder as the framework for a sobering look at the ongoing battle for equal rights." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Controversy

On October 7, 2017, transgender filmmaker

Tourmaline Tourmaline ( ) is a crystalline silicate mineral group in which boron is compounded with elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium. Tourmaline is a gemstone and can be found in a wide variety of colors. The ...

wrote on Instagram alleging that France appropriated her research from a grant application for her film project (which would become '' Happy Birthday, Marsha!'', a narrative short). France denied the allegation saying that he was already well into the research for his documentary when he first became aware of Tourmaline's work, while acknowledging that he "witnessed the obstacles ourmalinefaces as an artist who is also a transgender woman of color, obstacles that have been far less onerous" for him. On October 11, a more detailed account of Tourmaline's allegation was published on the ''

Teen Vogue ''Teen Vogue'' is an American online publication, formerly in print, launched in January 2003, as a sister publication to ''Vogue (magazine), Vogue'', targeted at teenagers. Like ''Vogue'', it included stories about fashion and celebrities. Since ...

'' website. Subsequent investigations by '' Jezebel'' and ''

The Advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. The Advocate, The Advocates or Advocate may also refer to: Magazines * ''The Advocate'' (LGBT magazine), an LGBT magazine based in the United States *''The Harvard Advocate'', a literary magazin ...

'' found no evidence in support of the allegation.

References

External links

* *
Archival Vérité: David France Talks about "The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson" on MUBI
{{DEFAULTSORT:Death And Life Of Marsha P Johnson, The 2017 documentary films 2017 films 2017 LGBT-related films African-American LGBT-related films Transgender-related documentary films Documentary films about LGBT culture Documentary films about violence against LGBT people Documentary films about New York City Netflix original documentary films Biographical films about LGBT people 2010s English-language films 2010s American films American LGBT-related documentary films Films scored by Bryce Dessner