MONDAY, MAY 25, 8PM
Gavilán Rayna Rossum presents 3 WOMEN
(Robert Altman, 1977)
On her first day of work, naive Pinky Rose meets chatterbox Millie Lammoreaux, and the two quickly become roommates. Things are good at first, but after the women’s first quarrel, Pinky has a bad accident. When Pinky recovers, the two women's identities begin shifting in mysterious ways. Robert Altman’s queerest film boasts brilliant performances from Shelly Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule; a dreamlike narrative similar to PERSONA and MULHOLLAND DRIVE; and a haunting score by gay composer Gerald Busby. Our guest presenter, acclaimed electronic musician and artist Gavilán Rayna Rossum (“The Envoy”, LCD Soundsystem), finds inspiration in the “complex inner feminine worlds the film investigates, the way its ultra witchy version of maid, mother, and crone operates outside of heteronormative rigidity and its ability to elucidate the deeply haunted nature of white American life.”RSVP here
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MONDAY, JUNE 22, 8PM
Baseera Khan presents PAKEEZAH
(Kamal Amrohi, 1972)
This 1972 Bollywood musical love story set in turn-of-the-century India stars Meena Kumari as an Indo-Islamic tawai’if (courtesan) who is trained in the art of love but forbidden to fall into it. Director Kamal Amrohi relies on the suffocating, deeply entrenched battle between traditional values and the fear of difference (in this case, an independent woman) suggesting that safety and respectability is only found in the arms of a husband. The legend around the making of this film and the tortured romance between director and star adds to the salacious delight of PAKEEZAH, which translates into “the pure one”. As a native-born Muslim American artist, guest presenter Baseera Khan will explain how this film “became her coat of arms and system of protection,” while growing up in Texas.RSVP here
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MONDAY, JULY 13, 8PM
Deborah Bright presents THE HUNGER
(Tony Scott, 1983)
This erotically charged vampire film, directed by Tony Scott, has all the delights and horrors of 80s era excess, including shoulder-pads, David Bowie, gothic nightclubs, flowing curtains, slow-motion doves and rapid aging. Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve play star-crossed lovers whose fates become intertwined in what photographer and artist Deborah Bright recalls as “one of the absolute BEST lesbian love scenes in mainstream film.” Beautifully sublime sets, art directed by Clinton Cavers with Stephen Goldblatt’s cinematography, elevates the horror genre into a poetic artifice of decadence and decay. Commended for its queer themes at the height of the AIDS epidemic, Bright saw this movie soon after coming out and found this “visually over the top, very noir and creepy” cult favorite resonating with her and other “adventurous lesbians.”RSVP here
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MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 8PM
Nayland Blake presents THE THING
(John Carpenter, 1982)
In horror legend John Carpenter’s gory 1982 masterpiece, scientists in Antarctica unearth a frozen alien parasite with shape-shifting abilities. When “the thing” begins imitating the appearance of the scientists, suspicion and paranoia turn everyone against each other in a gruesome hunt to stop it from escaping. Acclaimed non-binary artist Nayland Blake first watched the film in 1983, initially interpreting it as an AIDS analogy, then later as a metaphor for fears of homosexuality. “The body eruptions, mutating orifices, and emotional standoffs between the male characters speak to straight fears of queerness as a disease in itself,” Nayland writes. “THE THING told a horror story at the beginning of the decade that the rest of the world would catch up to over the ensuing years.”RSVP here
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| But where can I stream these films? Right here silly! |
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| Lead institutional support for Queer|Art is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies, HBO, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and New York State Council for the Arts. |
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