Thursday, May 30, 20139:30 p.m.
TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St W
The film will screen at TIFF Bell Lightbox, and will feature a slide show before screening featuring archival images from The ArQuives. The ArQuives will also have a booth and table at TIFF Bell Lightbox the evening of the screening.
About the film:
Continental is a stylish examination of an archetype – a lively and lascivious piece of real estate that transcended sexual identity and acted as a beacon to the hip, beautiful and infamous in New York City. The Continental Bath and Health Club opened in 1968 and quickly became one of the most significant landmarks for gay liberation and sexual revolution, thanks to the savvy entrepreneurial skills of its owner, Steve Ostrow. The Baths became renowned for its live performances, which included artists such as Bette Midler, the Pointer Sisters, Labelle and Natalie Cole. Classical singer Eleanor Steber recorded a live album at The Continental where, for her concert, men in the audience decked out in their finest black towels. Continental is as much the story of the magnetic Ostrow as it is about the bathhouse. Ostrow’s life is rich with entertaining anecdotes, among them his ambition to be an opera singer and his personal sexual evolution. Director Ingram deftly weaves Ostrow’s recollections with luminaries author Edmund White, singer Sarah Dash from Labelle, Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn, and house-music innovator Frankie Knuckles, among others, into a smart, steamy portrait of the hypersexual culture in the era before AIDS.
More info and tickets: Click here
Interior. Leather Bar.
Friday, May 31, 2013
10:00 p.m.
TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St W
There will be a The ArQuives slide show and The ArQuives will have a booth and table at TIFF Bell Lightbox the evening of screening. The film is being sponsored by Heart of the Flag Federation. Q & A with director (Travis Mathews) and lead actor (Christian Patrick) will follow screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox. An after party will be held at the Black Eagle.
About the film:
To avoid an X rating, 40 minutes of gay S&M footage was rumoured to have been deleted from the controversial 1980 film, Cruising. Upon the film’s original release, gay activists claimed that the story—Al Pacino plays an undercover cop investigating a case in New York’s gay S&M and leather scene—stirred up homophobic stereotypes. Oscar-nominated actor James Franco and filmmaker Travis Mathews (I Want Your Love; In Their Room: London) have set out to re-imagine this missing and now legendary 40 minutes of film. Hovering between reality and fiction, Interior. Leather Bar. is as much a film about exploring artistic process as it is sexy interpretation.
More info and tickets: Click here