LATIN BOYS GO TO HELL
1997. 71 min. Directed by Ela Troyano
Tickets here
Five young Latinos with extreme passions interact and eventually explode across Brooklyn in this story of self-discovery, friction, and resentment. The film stars Irwin Ossa as 20-year-old Justin, John Bryant Davila as his handsome cousin Angel, and in his film debut, Mike Ruiz as Carlos. Presenting artist Cassils writes that “Ela cast Latin heartthrob Mike Ruiz, centering homosexual Latin representation over cis white West Hollywood twinkdom. This film flags John Waters, telenovela, and Pedro Almodóvar.” Shot in dreamy 16mm, the film glows with the fiery desire of its characters, who find themselves caught between their attraction to a machismo image and a longing for meaningful gay intimacy. Adapted from an unpublished novel by André Salas, this feature debut from legend of the downtown scene Ela Troyano is sure to get your blood pumping!
CASSILS is a transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils’ art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQIA+ violence, representation, struggle and survival. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils’s work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment. Cassils had recent solo exhibitions at HOME Manchester, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC; Institute for Contemporary Art, AU; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Bemis Center, Omaha; MU Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Ela Troyano is a writer, director, producer, and interdisciplinary artist. Her projects bring together different aesthetic histories and genres, from downtown New York avant-garde film and performance, to queer cinema, and Latinx film and video as well as commercial television. Troyano received the Teddy Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for Carmelita Tropicana Your Kunst is Your Waffen—Your Art is Your Weapon, attended the Sundance Institute’s screenwriting workshop with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and received awards from Creative Capital, the Ford Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Latino Public Broadcasting, Independent Television Service, New York State Council on the Arts, Rockefeller Media, and a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship.
Still from Latin Boys Go to Hell (1997, Ela Troyano)
Queer|Art|Film is sponsored by HBO Max and presented in partnership with IFC.