Join us for an informal discussion before and after Friedkin’s film Cruising (1980) where archive materials will be provided to look through and Jim Hubbard's film Stop The Movie (1980) will be playing on the Café & Bar screen.
Friedkin’s Cruising (1980) film follows a Police officer who is assigned to go undercover in the gay leather and BDSM subculture in New York City following a series of murders targeting gay men; based on real murders of individuals known and loved by the community in New York. There was a significant response from the queer community after the script was leaked. It was seen by many as being dangerous to the political movement fighting HIV and AIDS as it associated queer people with violence, undermining the humanitarian movement for healthcare.
At the same time Cruising cast many members of the gay leather and BDSM community who were positive about their involvement and wanted to have their sub-culture of gay life represented in a mainstream film. Hubbard’s film depicts a handful of the demonstrations against the filming of Cruising capturing the scale and intensity of feeling at the time in this raw super 8 documentary footage.
Hand-processed, Super-8. Digital transfer made possible by a grant from the Al Larvick Conservation Fund.
This event is part Other Ways of Seeing, an initiative supported by BFI awarding funds from National Lottery co-curated by UWE MA Curating student at Watershed George Cruse-Drew, Ellen Smith and Andy Willis (Professor of Film Studies at the University of Salford and Senior Visiting Curator at HOME) in partnership with Queer Vision.
This space is intended to serve as an opportunity to discuss the film and the wider context; please be respectful of the lived experience of queer people.
Some of the displayed items contain discussions of the HIV and AIDS crisis.