Free Talk: Politics of Desire

Several films in this year’s NYFF60 lineup probe the erotic dimensions of power and cinema’s unique ability to give form to the politics of desire. Joao Pedro Rodrigues’s Will-o’-the-Wisp mixes play and transgression in an outré queer musical that implicates both Portugal’s colonial past and its apocalyptic, wildfire-stricken present. In Ruth Beckermann’s Mutzenbacher, the staged reading of a 20th-century Viennese pornographic text becomes a wry and unflinching interrogation of contemporary male attitudes toward women, fantasy, sexuality, and the ever-moving targets of morality. In the Currents program, Elisabeth Subrin’s short film Maria Schneider, 1983 recreates an infamous French TV interview with the titular star about the traumatic filming of Last Tango in Paris. A trio of actresses play Schneider, including Isabel Sandoval, whose own filmmaking revels in queer sensuality. This roundtable will bring together Subrin, Rodrigues, Beckermann, Sandoval to discuss the ways in which their work gives subversive and radical form to sex, eroticism, and embodiment.

Joao Pedro Rodrigues’s Will-o’-the-Wisp, Ruth Beckermann’s Mutzenbacher, and  Elisabeth Subrin’s Maria Schneider, 1983 are Currents selections of this year’s New York Film Festival. 

NYFF Talks are presented by:

Free tickets for NYFF60 Talks will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis beginning one hour prior to each event at the corresponding box office. Tickets are limited to one per person, subject to availability. For those unable to attend, video from these events will be available online on Film at Lincoln Center’s YouTube channel at a later date.