PNW-made film "Dark & Tender" Breaks Down Stereotypes

You are invited to a special FREE community Premiere event of "Dark & Tender." The screening will include an opening talk by director Aaron Johnson, a screening of the short film, Director Q&A, and a song circle led by Aaron Johnson.

Shot on Whidbey Island, the Chronically UnderTouched (CUT) Project’s new documentary interrupts four hundred years of the Black Brute archetype with tender, caring, platonic touch between Black men.

Aaron Johnson’s powerful short film "Dark and Tender" follows ten Black men on a transformative retreat with the Chronically UnderTouched (CUT) Project outside Seattle, WA. The men seek to reclaim platonic intimacy and tenderness through close encounters with nature and depictions of gentle Black masculinity, restoring the vital aspect of touch by replacing violence and rough play with care, connection, and intimacy.

Aaron Johnson is a public speaker, facilitator, and touch activist who practices closeness as a way to break down barriers between people. As co-founder of both Holistic Resistance and Grief to Action, Aaron takes the time to hold the stories of black people around homophobia, transphobia, internalized racism, and those that are Chronically UnderTouched. Aaron has created the Chronically UnderTouched (CUT) Project — basic strategies to bring a black body from being Chronically UnderTouched to a state of touch balance — as part of the lifelong journey of interrupting oppressive systems that make touch balance a radical action.