Sing and fight! Queer activist musicals by John Greyson
When:
—
Venue:
Online
Sing and fight! Queer activist musicals by John Greyson.
This is an online event, links to the screening and Q+A, will be sent out shortly before the start of the event.
Schedule
18.00 Films available to watch on Vimeo
Link: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7738523 PASSWORD: BIMI2020
19.30 Live Q&A with Jonathan Greyson and Miss Annabel Sings
Link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/guest/fbfdf6befb0746c3872a7a74c783f883
Floating drag queens, singing fish, safer sex commercials by famous artists; these are just some of the ways that AIDS activism and LGBT liberation is explored in this screening of musical films by Canadian director John Greyson. Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image is pleased to present a one-off chance to see these rarely shown films online, following a sold-out screenings in Edinburgh at The Fruitmarket Gallery and Glasgow at The Deep End in 2019 and 2020, originally curated by Edinburgh Artists’ Moving Image Festival (EAMIF).
Followed by a live Q&A with John Greyson hosted by cabaret artist Miss Annabel Sings.
Films in the programme include The ADS Epidemic (1987) in which Aschenbach succumbs to an attack of ‘ADS (Acquired Dread of Sex)’ in a take on the media-induced paranoia about AIDS, and The Pink Pimpernel (1989), a musical retelling of French Revolution thriller The Scarlet Pimpernel retold as a fight for AIDS medication, amongst musical safer sex commercials by famous dead artists and real interviews with AIDS Action Now activist. Alongside these rarely shown films from the 1980s, the event centres on clips from Zero Patience (1993), that tells the story of the unfairly stigmatised, supposed ‘patient zero’ of the AIDS epidemic in North America.
John Greyson is a Toronto-based film and video artist whose has made 60+ award-winning features, installations, transmedia works and shorts. He lectures widely on topics that include digital activism and the avant-garde, opera and social change, queer cinema and the middle east, and visualizing prison justice. He has worked extensively on social justice campaigns with community activist groups.
Miss Annabel Sings is a performance and video artist, puppeteer, activist and producer who has worked in hospitals using the power of performance to support people living with mental health issues and dementia.
This screening is 18+. The films include one depiction of rape simulated with toy dolls and one depiction of homophobic violence. There is also real sex and nudity.
The in person screenings of this event were supported by HIV Scotland, The Fruitmarket Gallery and BFI Film Audience Network.
Contact name:
Matthew Barrington