UCLA Film & Television Archive's Pioneers of Queer Cinema program screening Mike Kuchar's SEASCAPE

Intro by filmmaker Zackary Drucker; Florrie Burke, widow of Barbara Hammer.

Collectively, Outfest, IndieCollect and UCLA are committed to sharing LGBTQ+ moving images in order to bring diverse communities together to discuss differing, often radical explorations of sexual orientation and gender identity. From this shared vision, the Pioneers of Queer Cinema program was conceived. The organizers and supporters of this series hope to introduce and reacquaint audiences with landmark queer works and their makers, while inspiring new conversations and renewed action surrounding the complex obstacles LGBTQ+ communities continue to face.

Program includes Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks (1947), Mike Kuchar’s Seascape (1984), Zackary Drucker’s At Least You Know You Exist (2011) and Barbara Hammer’s Nitrate Kisses (1992).

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Pioneers of Queer Cinema program screening Mike Kuchar's SEASCAPE travels to Metrograph

Barbara Hammer’s debut feature Nitrate Kisses (1992) integrates the experiences of a diverse sampling of figures from the LGBTQ+ community—including a mixed-race gay couple, representative of the S/M community, and an older lesbian couple—with footage from Lot in Sodom (1933), one of the first American films to make explicit reference to homosexuality. With Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks (1947), a shoot-the-works celebration of outlawed sexuality; Mike Kuchar’s Seascape (1984), a gorgeous landscape film of ancient and echoing meanings paying homage to a lithe young muse caught at intersection of land and sea; and At Least You Know You Exist (2011), trans artist Zachary Drucker’s collaboration with elder and activist Flawless Sabrina, both together onscreen after the latter gives a stirring recitation of an essay on the false promises of capitalism and consumption.

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Program 10: Meet the Kuchar Brothers @ Film at Lincoln Center

George and Mike Kuchar entered the underground as Bronx teenagers who were making visionary 8mm approximations of Hollywood spectaculars, providing, in the process, a kind of roadmap for the camp-punk stylings of later auteurs like John Waters. This program, comprised of three early efforts by the duo, includes: Tootsies in Autumn, wherein a group of past-their-prime stage actors descend into madness as they fight and bicker amongst themselves; A Town Called Tempest, a typically torrid melodrama concerning extreme weather conditions; and the tragicomic Lovers of Eternity, in which a lonesome hipster poet makes friends with a succession of bizarre characters atop a squalid New York rooftop in a latter-day Garden of Eden, complete with a cast featuring Jack Smith, filmmaker Dov Lederberg, and an enormous cockroach. A Town Called Tempest is preserved by Anthology Film Archives through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Foundation. Tootsies in Autumn and Lovers of Eternity are preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

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Free Valentine's Day Online Screening of Sins of the Fleshapoids

For the second in the series, Hall offers up an alternative Valentine's Day special double feature of unorthodox sexuality and desire, which includes Mike Kuchar’s Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965) and Mary Reid Kelley's Swinburne’s Pasiphae (2014). Set a million years from now, Sins of the Fleshapoids reveals a debased future where humanity has forsaken science for self-indulgence and erotic pleasure. A race of enslaved Androids, undertakes all labour, until a rebellious Robot, tired of pleasuring his masters, decides to join the humans in sin.

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New Restoration of Death Quest of the Ju-ju Cults Now Streaming

Thanks to the efforts of the Kuchar Brothers Trust, in collaboration with Anthology and Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Mike Kuchar’s DEATH QUEST OF THE JU-JU CULTS, has been newly restored! Arguably Mike’s solo magnum opus, DEATH QUEST is a mini-epic that gleefully and lovingly combines two of Mike’s favorite – if seemingly irreconcilable – genres. What appears at first to be a straightforward prehistoric tale soon morphs into something else entirely, with the deux ex machina appearance of…sorry, no spoilers. In any case, whatever the genre, DEATH QUEST was made with a nearly non-existent budget, but with admirably game actors, Mike’s uniquely resourceful visual gifts, and his inimitable ability to combine mischievous parody with wide-eyed sincerity.

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Brothers Kuchar @ REDCAT Theater

REDCAT is delighted to welcome legendary artist Mike Kuchar for a program of films and videos made by himself and his late twin brother George. Iconic figures who helped define underground film in the 1960s, George and Mike began making no-budget 8mm films in the Bronx while still in their teens. Working with neighbors and friends, the Kuchars created lurid and hilarious takeoffs of Hollywood weepies that made a huge impact on notions of camp and new possibilities for queer cinema, and influenced a generation that included Jack Smith, Andy Warhol, and many others. Mike Kuchar, whose visual art is on display at François Ghebaly Gallery, will be on hand to show recent videos and reminisce.

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