In this exclusive audio interview Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ talks with filmmaker Keri Pickett about “Uncle Roy” the fabulous documentary she directed chronicling nine decades of Roy Blakey’s personal and professional archives. Growing up Keri hardly knew her enigmatic uncle until she followed him to NYC to pursue photography where an unexpected friendship took shape. As their lives intertwined she discovered his groundbreaking legacy of celebrity and gay photos. When Roy’s health declined Keri cared for him while preserving the stories he kept so carefully guarded. “Uncle Roy” follows the extraordinary life of globe-traveling-skater turned photographer Roy Blakey born in Oklahoma in 1930 dreaming of performing on ice. This love of figure skating led Roy to a career in theatrical skating, performing globally with Holiday on Ice. He then began collecting figure skating programs and photographs, a collection that expanded over his lifetime to 44,000 items including posters, costumes and more. After his professional skating career Blakey became a photographer in NYC capturing iconic figures including LGBTQ icons while his work in male nudes pushed boundaries in art and publishing. Blakey’s book “HE” (1972) is considered a forefather of gay photography with his portraits of a generation largely lost to AIDS. “Uncle Roy” is currently playing the film festival circuit with upcoming screening including Reel Q the Pittsburgh LGBT Film Festival on October 9th, NewFest: 38th Annual New York LGBTQ Film Festival on October 18th, QDoc October 24th in Portland, OR, SCAD Savannah Film Festival October 30th and Indie Memphis Film Festival on November 8th. We talked to Keri about what she hopes to accomplish with her documentary and her spin on surviving these challenging times.
Keri Pickett is an award-winning artist, producer, director and cinematographer. Pickett’s documentary films FINDING HER BEAT (2022), FIRST DAUGHTER AND THE BLACK SNAKE (2017) and THE FABULOUS ICE AGE (2013) have won multiple awards and screened at festivals around the world breaking records in attendance and streamed on Netflix. An acclaimed photographer Pickett has published multiple photography books with photographs displayed in international and national museums and have appeared in Life, Time, People, Stern and Geo magazines. Keri has been awarded fellowships from the Bush Foundation, McKnight, Jerome and Target Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts. Pickett was awarded the 2018 McKnight Filmmaking Fellowship. For More Info…
