BAMcinématek presents Born in Flames: New Queer Cinema, a 25-film series commemorating the 20th anniversary of the watershed year for New Queer Cinema, Oct 9 & 11—16 The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor for BAMcinématek and BAM Rose Cinemas. Brooklyn, NY/Sep 14, 2012—From Tuesday, October 9 through Tuesday, October 16, BAMcinématek presents Born in Flames: New Queer Cinema, a series commemorating the 20th anniversary of the term ―New Queer Cinema‖ and coinciding with LGBT History Month. A loosely defined subset of the independent film zeitgeist of the early 1990s, New Queer Cinema saw a number of openly gay artists break out with films that vented anger over homophobic policies of the Reagan and Thatcher governments and the grim realities of the AIDS epidemic with aesthetically and politically radical images of gay life. This primer of new queer classics includes more than two dozen LGBT-themed features and short films, including important early works by directors Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, and Gregg Araki, and experimental filmmakers Peggy Ahwesh, Luther Price, and Isaac Julien. New Queer Cinema was first named and defined 20 years ago in a brief but influential article in Sight & Sound by critic B. Ruby Rich, who noted a confluence of gay-oriented films among the most acclaimed entries in the Sundance, Toronto, and New Directors/New Films festivals of 1991 and 1992. Rich called it ―Homo Pomo,‖ a self-aware style defined by ―appropriation and pastiche, irony, as well as a reworking of history with social constructionism very much in mind . irreverent, energetic, alternately minimalist and excessive.‖ The most prominent of the films Rich catalogued were Tom Kalin’s Leopold and Loeb story Swoon (the subject of a 20th anniversary BAMcinématek tribute on September 13) and Haynes’ Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Poison (1991—Oct 12), an unpolished but complex triptych of unrelated, stylistically diverse, Jean Genet-inspired stories. While two of Poison’s strains deal elliptically with gay themes, the frank prison seduction segment ―Homo‖ triggered a homophobic crusade against government-sponsored gay art (a depressing refrain that afflicted no less than four films in this series). Poison screens with avant-garde master Luther Price’s Sodom, ―a horrific assemblage of 1970s gay porno films…accompanied by Gregorian chants and interspersed with crowd scenes from biblical epics…is brilliantly edited— both for its abstract rhythmic and all-too-representational qualities.‖ (J. Hoberman). Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning (1991—Oct 12), which won the documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance the same year, is a candid, warm portrait of the subculture of New York drag balls that reveals a thriving support system of surrogate families among mostly poor Hispanic and African-American transgender community. Twenty years later, nearly all of its vibrant stars have succumbed to violence or AIDS. Christopher Munch’s The Hours and Times (Oct 11), a beautifully detailed bit of historical fiction and yet another 1991 Sundance prize-winner, imagines an emotional (if not physical) intimacy between John Lennon and gay Beatles impresario Brian Epstein during a 1963 getaway. An unlikely queer icon, Lennon also turns up in Cecilia Dougherty’s Grapefruit (1989—Oct 11), a collection of great moments in the history of Yoko and John staged by an all-female cast. Loosely inspired by John Rechy’s classic gay novel City of Night and Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho (1991—Oct 14) stars River Phoenix (who won the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival) and an equally impressive Keanu Reeves as male prostitutes adrift in the Pacific Northwest hustler underworld.. An openly gay filmmaker of a slightly older generation, Derek Jarman (Jubilee) intersected with the New Queer wave via Edward II (1991—Oct 14), a pared down, modern dress adaptation of the Christopher Marlowe play. The film emphasizes the homophobic persecution of Edward and his lover Gaveston—and incorporates memorable cameos by Annie Lennox and androgynous icon Tilda Swinton. In his semi- documentary meditation on poet Langston Hughes, Looking For Langston (1989—Oct 15), Jarman’s fellow Londoner Isaac Julien recreates the gay nightclubs of 1920s Harlem in smoky monochrome. Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied (1989—screens with Langston), intersperses evocative montages of music, dance, and spoken word with oral histories of gay black men. Part 1960s Godard tribute, part sex-positive after-school special, Gregg Araki’s Totally F***ed Up (1993—Oct 13, a rare 35mm screening) is a low-budget slice of queer life in Los Angeles, its quirky sense of humor concealing genuine angst over the high suicide rate among gay youths. The closeted-suburban- kid/Vietnamese-American-hustler two-hander The Delta (1996—Oct 16), a languorous debut feature by Ira Sachs (Forty Shades of Blue), is no less pessimistic about the prospects of coming out in the present- day South. The Delta screens with Matthias Müller’s languorous Sleepy Haven, described by fellow Austrian avant-gardist Peter Tscherkassky as a cross between Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks and Jean Genet’s Chant de Amour. A same-sex interpolation of Robert Altman’s obscure 1969 film That Cold Day in the Park, Canadian punk and porn auteur Bruce LaBruce’s No Skin Off My Ass (1993—Oct 13) is a ―politico-comical porno home art movie,‖ per the director-star. The film features lesbian queer-core rocker G. B. Jones, whose girl-gang short The Yo-Yo Gang (1992) screens alongside it. In The Watermelon Woman (1996—Oct 9), the first feature film made by a black lesbian, director-star Cheryl Dunye plays a documentarian investigating the sapphic off-screen life of Fae Richards, a fictional 1930s actress famous for her unflattering ―mammy‖ caricatures. As part of the film’s production, photographer Zoe Leonard (whose film East River Park screens as part of this series) created a body of still photographs that chart an alternative history of Hollywood. Alex Sichel’s coming-out drama All Over Me (1997—Oct 11, a rare 35mm screening) stars the winning Alison Folland (To Die For) as an awkward teen torn between her straight, hot-mess best friend and an out, available punk-rock cutie (Leisha Hailey of the band Uh Huh Her). A key precursor to New Queer Cinema, Lizzie Borden’s pseudo-documentary Born in Flames (1983—Oct 9) imagines a lesbian-led feminist revolution and captures Koch-era New York City in all its grimy glory, including a squirm-inducing prescience in its use of the World Trade Center. Two shorts programs in the series highlight New Queer avant-garde works. The Act Up shorts program on October 15 features Jean Carlomusto and Maria Maggenti’s activist video Doctors, Liars and Women (1988), which follows an Act Up protest against media misinformation in regard to the effect of HIV and AIDS on women, and East River Park, Zoe Leonard and Nancy Brody’s documentation of AIDS- related graffiti in popular cruising spots that is by turns angry, alarmist, and despairing. Possibly the most famous film to emerge from the Act Up scene, Gregg Bordowitz’s dark, DIY Fast Trip, Long Drop (1994), combines found footage with videotaped confessions and conversations that attempt to digest the filmmaker’s HIV diagnosis. The shorts programs continue with Peggy Ahwesh’s masterpiece Martina’s Playhouse (1989), a sort of feminist response to Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and Su Friedrich’s First Comes Love (1991), a near-ethnographic look at the rights and rituals of heterosexual marriage. Both screen on October 16 as part of the Playhouse shorts program, along with three autobiographical pixelvision videos by founding member of Le Tigre, Sadie Benning. A sensation at the 1993 Whitney Biennial when she was barely 20 years old, Benning ―gave voice to the age-old adolescent longing for knowledge—of self, of love, of the world‖ (Roberta Smith, The New York Times). Playhouse features Me and Rubyfruit (1989), Benning’s interpretation of the famous lesbian coming-of-age novel Rubyfruit Jungle; It Wasn’t Love (1992), shot entirely in the artist’s bedroom; and the touching, funny Jollies (1990), which was made when Benning was 16 and ends with the handwritten proclamation: ―as queer as can be.‖ For screeners or press information, please contact Gabriele Caroti at 718.724.8024 / [email protected] Lisa Thomas at 718.724.8023 / [email protected] New Queer Cinema Schedule Tue, Oct 9 6:50pm: The Watermelon Woman 9:15pm: Born in Flames Thu, Oct 11—National Coming Out Day 6:50pm: The Hours and Times + Grapefruit 9:15pm: All Over Me Fri, Oct 12 4:30, 9:30pm: Paris Is Burning 6:50pm: Poison + Sodom Sat, Oct 13 6:50pm: Totally Fucked Up 9:15pm: No Skin Off My Ass + The Yo-Yo Gang Sun, Oct 14 2, 6:50pm: My Own Private Idaho 4:30, 9:15pm: Edward II Mon, Oct 15 4:30, 9:30pm: Looking for Langston + Tongues Untied 6:50pm: Act Up shorts—Long Trip, Fast Drop + Doctors, Liars and Women + East River Park Tue, Oct 16 6:50pm: Jollies + Martina’s Playhouse + Sadie Benning shorts 9:30pm: The Delta + Sleepy Haven Film Descriptions ACT UP Shorts 84min total Doctors, Liars and Women (1988, 54min) Directed by Jean Carlomusto and Maria Maggenti. East River Park (1992, 4min) Directed by Zoe Leonard and Nancy Brody. Fast Trip, Long Drop (1993, 54min) Directed by Gregg Bordowitz. This collection of shorts by artists associated with ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) includes Jean Carlomusto & Maria Maggenti’s documentation of the first AIDS demonstration focused on women, Zoe Leonard’s somber exploration of the graffiti at a popular cruising spot, and Gregg Bordowitz’s essay film about his identity as both an AIDS activist and a person living with the disease.