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You're viewing the Frameline37 (2013) archive held in 2013. Explore this years festival

Interior. Leather Bar.

Directed by Travis Mathews & James Franco2013USA93 mins

Interior. Leather Bar. has made headlines as an attempt by genre-hopping directors Travis Mathews and James Franco to reconstruct the legendary “lost” footage cut (to avoid an X rating) from William Friedkin’s crime thriller Cruising — the controversial 1980 film starring Al Pacino as a straight undercover cop in New York’s leather world. But this new film is far more than two cinephiles’ academic exercise.

Yes, they reimagine the infamous bar scene — with actor Val Lauren playing a version of Pacino — and bring a non-judgmental gaze onto the explicit backroom frolicking. But the filmmakers cleverly weave the re-creation into a meta-drama about the making of the 2012 scene, revealing its participants’ reservations and excitement and creating the quasi-doc about Hollywood, censorship, and sexual mores. Interior. Leather Bar. may have a famous controversy and James Franco as its attention-grabbers, but at heart it is a rumination on what separates creative and sexual expression, and private and public performance.

Preceded by:

In Their Room: London

32 mins

Since 2009, Travis Mathews has been taking his friendly and inquisitive camera into the bedrooms of gay men across the world for a series of intimate interviews about sex and love in the hook-up age. In this installment, Londoners reveal their private desires...

Expected Guests

Travis Mathews
Director

This film contains sexually explicit material.

Quick links
Director
Travis Mathews & James Franco
Year
2013
Country
USA
Running Time
93 mins
Language
English
Section
US Feature
Program Note Writer
Peter L. Stein