FILTH! Reel Five

Placing together queer history and queer presence in Cinema, we ask you to enter and expand the annals of Queer Film. With this series we showcase queer erotica past and present, centralizing queer desire to remind us of our histories. From vintage arthouse pornos, 90 backroom home movies, 00s web boom, we contextualize queer desire through multiple lenses. As we fight for physical queer spaces today and find ourselves equipped with cameras/computers in our pockets and generations of underseen queer history at our disposal, where do we go?

This is our proposal to you, but let us warn you… it’s FILTHY!

CONTENT WARNING: This event is 18+ and includes themes of: sexual liberation, intimacy, the Universe, fucking, and the nature within us all. This sometimes, but does not always, include visual or audio material that could be labeled "pornographic".

FILTH! presented by SEEN: A series

At present the FILTH! Series consists of 5 programming blocks with run time ~60-75 minutes. We have shown all 5 in Chicago and Austin, plus Reel 1 in New York City! Other iterations of the FILTH! Series have shown in Milwaukee, with a more direct community approach through matinee events, workshops, and open floor community conversation. The following information is specific to Reel 5, additional reels can be screened after a first event. *Reel 1 was put on VHS via VXPX*
While currently donation and self funded. We work directly with the artists, who have agreed to share their work for a percentage share at each new venue the program screens. These films are interspliced with archival clips from The Vault. Our approach tries to make moving image art accessible to all, while making it sustainable work for ourselves as working class artists and programmers. For more information please email SeenMovingImage@gmail.com

About SEEN

SEEN is a queer coalition of moving image makers, researchers, and curators who aim to disrupt the system of pay to show festivals and censored queer spaces. Through collaboration with other community driven and alternative artists and spaces, SEEN highlights self defined and nonconformist works to build a foundation for the rise of the Cinematic Gaze/Gayz.

FILTH! Reel 5

Our first FILTH! Block in 3 years! Adding onto the original 4 part series Reel 5 brings together work from Chicago, California, Arizona, and even France. It hosts Western road trips, insextual beings, stoner comedy, ultra short animation, Y2K ecstasy, & MORE. As always we bring you XXX works of decades prior from The Vault.

Current Films:

Hunger - Chris Noon (he/him) |Chicago, IL| [2:30]

Dreamy, homo and autoerotic sequences of a man cannibalizing himself told through a split screen format.

Que Mija - DAYLiGHT FiLMs |Los Angeles, CA| [10:35]

DAYLiGHT FiLMs presents a sensual adventure through red rock landscapes, open roads, and a vintage truck bed. Mx Lavva and Armcandy Darling are electric -- soaking the desert together.

Infestation - Oona Taper (she/her) |Kansas City, MO| [1:00]

A micro-short animated erotic fantasy/nightmare.

Pinned & Claimed - Indigo Mendes, Milo Whitson, Rey Webb (they/he x3) |Chicago, IL| [6:00]

The buzzing of a helpless victim draws in a hungry predator eager to collect and display his new specimen.

Goonweed - polaroids_wow (he/him) |San Francisco, CA| [4:17]

When two bros hotbox a new strain of cannabis called goonweed, they find themselves descending into a horny hysteria of ass-worship. Shot partially on VHS and using footage from a Gameboy Pocket Camera, Goonweed reifies the Roland Barthes quote "Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes?"

Y2KAGE - Jazzy Boho (they/them) |Tucson, AZ| [7:53]

What is a virtual pet in an age of mass surveillance? Get jacked out of the Y2KAGE in Jazzy Boho's Erotic Hauntology, a dazzling genre-bending allegory for sexual autonomy in America’s post-9/11 security state—an unforgettable, neon-dripping fever dream of cybersex, Tamagotchis, Bush-era surveillance, and the ghosts of a millennium that never arrived.

Clips from The Vault:

Spliced between these contemporary films, we showcase segments of works of decades past that create a throughline of queerness, self expression, and media over decades. The clips are curated to match thematically to the current works.Reel 5 featured Blacklode provided by Chicago’s BIJOU(World.com)

TRT 00:78:12*
*Includes FILTH! trailer and Manifesto
If you would like to know more about exhibited clips please reach out to SeenMovingImage@gmail.com

J. Barret - Collage Artist (Tabler)

J. Barrett is a Chicago based, Trans, Non-Binary, Queer artist obsessed with channeling the nuances of identity through collage. Using found materials and shaping them into portals of connection for the viewer, J invites you into to meet the moment with curiosity. They are passionate about using cultural references as a playful yet critical lens that challenges traditional norms to highlight tabooed boundaries within sexuality and contemporary society. Check out more of their visual art at SoftFocusStudio.com and their writing at Soft Focus Studio on Substack!

Sam Gore (Tabler)

Sam Gore is a a multi-media transfag artist raised and based in Austin, Texas. His work focuses on queer eroticism, nostalgia and the fragmentation of memories. You can find more of his work on his Instagram, @samqueeird.

FILTH!

Reel Five

Elastic Arts | CHICAGO