Queer 60s - Film Rarities and the Films of Edward Owens + Live piano and electronic accompaniment (15*)
- 3pm
Tickets
About this event:
- Event type:
- Booking required
- Admission:
- Tickets: £17 (£15.50 + £1.50 transaction fee) Barbican Members: £12.40 Young Barbican (16-25): £6 Concessions & discounts: Students £16, Unwaged £16, Over 65s £16, Under 18s £7.50
- Date, time and location:
- , 3pm in Barbican Cinema 1, Barbican Centre Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
Title
A selection of queer movies from South Africa, the UK and the USA, culminating in three short films by gay African American filmmaker Edward Owens, with a new live score.
In a decade where same-sex sexual activity was illegal in most countries around the world, including the UK and the USA, LGBTQ+ lives were seldom shown on film. Queer artists would instead shoot underground films, designed to be shown to private audiences, while amateur filmmakers shot home movies, never intended to be shown on the big screen.
In this collection of queer rarities, with a new live score by students from the Electronic and Produced Music Department at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, we explore a rich variety of films showcasing LGBTQ+ people in front of and behind the camera, including a drag home movie from South Africa, a powerful British short about a gay couple experiencing societal oppression, and a wonderful trio of works by gay African American filmmaker Edward Owens, all made before he turned 21.
Film Programme
Faux Pas de Deux
South Africa c1960 dir Ernst Thorp 3 min
Swan Lake, as you’ve never seen it before.
Adventures with Tony
USA, c1960, 3 min
A remarkable series of fragments of home movie footage featuring a butch teen on vacation with her father in New Jersey.
Disneyland Discovery (Extract)
USA 1969 dir Pat Rocco 10 min
Can two gay guys find their fairytale ending?
Dream A40
UK 1965 dir Lloyd Reckord 16 min
A young gay couple's relationship is put to the test as a road trip takes a sinister turn.
Tomorrow’s Promise (Extract)
USA 1967 dir Edward Owens 8 min
Edward Owens attempts to tell a story of doomed romance solely through the interaction between images, abandoning conventional narration.
Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts
USA 1966 dir Edward Owens 6 min
A silent portrait of a series of individuals framed in interior, seemingly domestic spaces. The artist’s mother appears throughout the film.
Remembrance: A Portrait Study
USA 1967 dir Edward Owens 6 min
A montage of images of Owens’ mother and her circle of friends and acquaintances.
About Queer 60s
LGBTQ+ Cinema in the Decade before Stonewall
Throughout the 1960s, a decade of seismic social change which culminated in the Stonewall Riots, great directors worldwide created bold films that dared to depict queerness on screen.
Despite homosexuality still being illegal in many countries around the world, including the UK and the USA, filmmakers managed to create fearless works – sometimes openly, sometimes coded – that dared to show LGBTQ+ lives on screen.
Films such as drag pageant documentary The Queen, vibrant Spanish musical Diferente and sensitive Canadian drama Winter Kept Us Warm offered queer audiences a much-needed point of identification, when any same-sex sexual activity had to take place in the shadows. Short films and experimental films, often made underground and sometimes used as tools of resistance, offered new ways for LGBTQ+ people to express themselves. Meanwhile, exploitation films sensationalised LGBTQ+ lives, yet today hold value as time capsules of contemporary attitudes.
