Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus

In 1986 Diane Luckey, a 25 year-old African-American woman who went by the name Q Lazzarus or simply Q, was living in NYC making music and driving a yellow taxi. One night she picked up movie director Jonathan Demme, and played her demo for him. Demme immediately became obsessed with her smoky, androgynous voice and went on to include her music in four of his films, launching her music career. The haunting “Goodbye Horses” garnered a cult following after appearing in Married to the Mob and the “Buffalo Bill scene” in Silence of the Lambs. Q’s music also appeared in Something Wild, and she herself was featured singing the song “Heaven” in Philadelphia. Q enjoyed a brief moment of fame in New York City and London and then disappeared for more than two decades. Her friends and collaborators were unable to find her, and didn’t know if she was alive or dead...

In 2019 another filmmaker, Eva Aridjis, got into a car service that Diane Luckey was driving. As a former DJ and a Q Lazzarus fan, Eva recognized Q and the two struck up a friendship and decided to make a documentary film together. Goodbye Horses: The Story of Q Lazzarus will tell the story of how Diane Luckey went from singing in a Baptist church in NJ, to performing as Q Lazzarus in large music venues, to being homeless on the gritty streets of the East Village. It will show how she got her life back on track, driving cabs and buses to support her son and disabled husband, while cutting all ties to her past. It will examine how various individuals profited off Diane’s music during her absence, while she never earned a cent in royalties. Finally, it will chronicle her untimely and tragic death.