Films: Canyon Cinema's Queer Underground

Canyon Cinema's Queer Underground

88 Minute Running Time
Program: '60s/'70s Underground & Queer Cinema

Canyon Cinema has been the preeminent distributor of independently produced non-narrative films for the past 30 years. Variously called avant-garde, underground and experimental, these queer artists' works share uncompromising visions of personal expression that are free from the demands of commercial film conventions.

The program begins with the love shaman’s call for a sexual revolution of the body politic urging mankind into a new love age in Shaman Psalm. Fireworks releases Kenneth Anger’s “explosive pyrotechnics of a dream,” while I, An Actress gets to the guts of a dramatic scene, an actress and her director. Confessions begins with Curt McDowell’s disclosure to his parents of every sex act in the book and unfolds with his infectious charm and sexuality. In Holding, Coni Beeson explores lesbian love inside and out, and constructed from 14 dreams hear your own voice narrate Gently Down the Stream. Share in a tender, loving and unsentimental exchange in A Valentine for Nelson and witness a dairymaid who becomes “electrified” as she is called to churn butter in a dark forest in Devil’s Dairymaid.

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Films in Program...

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  Confessions

  USA , 1971 , 16 min.
  Director: Curt McDowell
  McDowell, a graduate student at San Francisco Art Institute, opens his film with a confession to his mother and father, listing (in exhausting detail) his sins of the flesh.... more
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  Devil's Dairymaid

  USA , 2008 , 8 min.
  Director: Kym S. Farmen
  A dairymaid is lured into a dark forest by mischievous and ominous spirits. She discovers a magical churn in a clearing and churns until she becomes “electrified.” Text Voting Code: S621... more
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  Fireworks

  USA , 1947 , 15 min.
  Director: Kenneth Anger
  Fireworks releases Kenneth Anger’s “explosive pyrotechnics of a dream.”... more
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  Gently Down The Stream

  USA , 1981 , 14 min.
  Director: Su Fredrich
  Hear your own voice narrate Gently Down the Stream... more
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  Holding

  USA , 1971 , 13 min.
  Director: Connie Beeson
  Two young women in love communicate through fantasy and touching in a rhythmic buildup, merging time concepts. Flashes of the past blend with the present and future in a collage of themselves, the hills, the sea and their sexuality.... more
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  I, An Actress

  USA , 1977 , 10 min.
  Director: George Kuchar
  The answer to a time and effort conundrum at the San Francisco Art Institute results in a wannabe actress’s screen test that gets to the guts of a dramatic scene--an actress and a director.... more
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  Shaman Psalm

  USA , 1981 , 7 min.
  Director: James Broughton
  The love shaman calls for a sexual revolution of the body politic urging mankind into a new love age.... more
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  Valentine For Nelson

  USA , 1990 , 5 min.
  Director: Jim Hubbard
  A relationship is as hard to build as a cathedral - it takes more than one lifetime. In this tender and loving film, virtually every shot is intended as a metaphor.... more

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  It Came From Kuchar

  USA , 2009 , 86 min. It Came From Kuchar is the definitive documentary film about the legendary underground filmmakers George and Mike Kuchar, recipients of this year’s Frameline Award. Text Voting Code: D326... more
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  Thundercrack!

  USA , 1975 , 152 min. Witness, if you dare, the world’s only underground kinky art porno horror movie complete with four men, three women and a gorilla! This film contains sexually explicit material.... more

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