RSVP here: https://www.queer-art.org/rsvp-to-teorema
Streaming links here: https://www.queer-art.org/streaming-links-for-qaf-winter-2021
TEOREMA
1968. 98 min. Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Filmmaker and producer Frédéric Tcheng hosts our third program this season, leading discussions on two films: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 classic, TEOREMA and François Ozon steamy narrative short, A SUMMER DRESS. The cinematic dreaminess of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s TEOREMA brings a 1968 Italian middle-class family to the silver screen. The film portrays a family, spiritually bereft but living a comfortable life of complacency, social status, and corporate idealization—with no passion for life until a visitor arrives. Known for depicting sexuality as a tool to render everything from hypocrisy to the heroic, in this classic, Pasolini explores sexuality to narrate the 1968 political movement, Il Sessantotto. The movement, which comprised protests driven by the working class, opposed traditional Italian values and called for an end to consumer capitalism and patriarchal structures. For Queer|Art|Film Club: Free Your Mind, guest presenter Frédéric Tcheng will explain how the “sexual tension, the religious overtones, and Silvana Mangano’s glamour” in TEOREMA inspired his personal career as a filmmaker, editor, and producer.
A SUMMER DRESS
1996. 15 min. Directed by François Ozon.
For Frédéric Tcheng, François Ozon’s 1996 narrative short, A SUMMER DRESS, is “an irresistible haiku on the circulation of desire and the fluidity of gender.” Regarded by many as the “first mainstream French queer filmmaker,” François Ozon has inspired generations to come with his flirtatious and evocative portraits of queerness.
Frédéric Tcheng on TEOREMA
“TEOREMA is a riddle that has fascinated me ever since I discovered it as a teenager. The sexual tension, the religious overtones, Silvana Mangano’s glamour... But above all, it’s the complete queerness of the worldview that transfixed me. Pasolini abolishes all boundaries, between gay and straight, between art and sex, between god and man. For the 16-year-old that I was, it was a revelation, a taste of cinematic sublime.”
Frédéric Tcheng on A SUMMER DRESS
“The first LGBT event I ever attended was a screening of short films by François Ozon in my home town of Lyon. A SUMMER DRESS was the gem of the program, an irresistible haiku on the circulation of desire and the fluidity of gender. In 15 short minutes, Ozon manages to pack two sex scenes, skinny dipping, and a campy rendition of the song Bang Bang.”
Frédéric Tcheng is a French-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. He co-produced and co-edited VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar. He is the co-director of the acclaimed documentary DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL, which the New York Times called “dizzily enjoyable.” His award-winning directorial debut, DIOR AND I, premiered at the 2014 Tribeca film festival and was released by The Orchard. His most recent film, HALSTON, was executive produced by CNN Films and premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. He has served as a filmmaking mentor for Queer|Art, a non-profit arts organization in New York serving a diverse community of LGBTQ+ artists across generations and disciplines. He studied engineering in France and is a graduate of the film program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.