Susannah Smith

Susannah Smith is a documentary filmmaker with a focus on stories about the importance of placemaking for often-marginalized urban communities. Her films have been featured at festivals nationally and online, including SFFILM, Q-films Long Beach, SF Streetsblog, and by the UC Critical Sustainabilities Group. She is an Associate Producer of the SF Urban Film Fest, and has worked as a Creative Producer at Bay Area agencies for 10+ years. She earned her MA in Social Documentation from U.C. Santa Cruz.

We Belong tells the story of the Lexington Club, the only women-centered queer bar in the gay mecca of San Francisco. In-between the parties and hook-ups, the bar became a space for community and conversation about marriage, visibility, transgender rights, and gentrification. Shot in the bar’s final four months, the film captures the emotional goodbye parties and intimate remembrances of patrons and employees, and with them, almost two decades of queer dyke community history.