SECRET 4/20 SCREENING
dir. XXXXXX XXXXXX XX, XXXXX XXXX
edit by XXXX XXXXX
Mystery Flick 1 – 67 min
Mystery Flick 2 – 65 min

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Come to Spectacle for a once in a lifetime secret 4/20 event!

We’ll be screening a fan edit of a classic animated fantasy film, set to one of the most famous stoner metal albums of all time, plus a bonus animated feature + sludge metal mashup that may or may not be an actual sequel to the first film.

This event is $5.

No smoking but ~vaping encouraged~ (this is a bit please don’t vape in the actual theater)

This April, Spectacle is thrilled to present two works by Jack Bond, the renowned British filmmaker whose life and career are as colorful and unconventional as the films he’s made.

Bond got his start in the early 1960s as a trailer editor and trainee producer/director for the BBC, before he was summarily fired for fabricating outraged viewer letters in his own attempt to “liven up” the network’s long-running write-in show, Points of View. Thankfully, this act and the increasingly abstract qualities of his trailer work, caught the attention of both Huw Wheldon— the BBC program controller who also helped shepherd the early careers of Bond’s contemporaries, Ken Russell and John Schlesinger— and producer Melvyn Bragg, who then hired Bond to create documentaries for his arts magazine program, New Release.

It was through this program that Bond was introduced to actor and playwright, Jane Arden, with whom he began a long-standing and prolific creative relationship. Throughout the late-1960s and 70s, the pair collaborated on a number of stage and screen works, including Arden’s groundbreaking multimedia theater piece, Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven, produced and directed by Bond, and the experimental features, SEPARATION (1967), THE OTHER SIDE OF UNDERNEATH (1972) and ANTI-CLOCK (1979), all widely considered to be of the most iconic avant-garde works in the British film canon.

Unfortunately, their prodigious partnership was cut short following Arden’s death by suicide in 1982, which had such a profound effect on Bond that he took it upon himself to store their works away at the National Film Archive under direct orders from him that they never be shown or released again. Bond continued to work in television and music videos for the next few decades, as his and Arden’s features faded further and further into obscurity, until 2009 when he finally contacted the Archive to authorize their re-release— though, in true Bond-ian fashion, not before having to jump through several hoops to verify that he was, in fact, the same “Jack Bond” whose name was plastered all over the film cannisters under the label “NEVER TO BE RELEASED AGAIN BY ORDER OF JACK BOND”.

Since 2009, Bond and Arden have rightfully, if somewhat belatedly, been celebrated for their brilliant contributions to avant-garde cinema and theater. Bond himself has since returned to feature filmmaking, releasing two documentaries in the last decade alone: THE BLUEBLACK HUSSAR (2013) about equally-eccentric British artist, Adam Ant, and AN ARTIST’S EYES (2018) about self-taught painter, Chris Moon.

Spectacle Theater is excited to continue this celebration of the filmmaker once called “the most irresponsible man on the face of God’s earth”* with screenings of SEPARATION and ANTI-CLOCK throughout the month of April, including a remote Q&A session with Jack Bond on Sunday, April 16th.

*After having accidentally let loose a few dozen asylum inmates and a full-grown bear while filming THE OTHER SIDE OF UNDERNEATH.

SEPARATION
dir. Jack Bond, 1968
UK. 93 min.
In English.

THURSDAY, APRIL 6 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 16 – 5 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)
FRIDAY, APRIL 21 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, APRIL 25 – 7:30 PM

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS

SPECIAL EVENT TICKETS (SUNDAY, APRIL 16)

“A new dimension of love.”

Set in 1960s London, Jack Bond’s feature debut concerns the inner turmoil of Jane (played by screenwriter Jane Arden), as she experiences breakdowns of both her marriage and mental health. The film is a wildly imaginative and brilliantly fragmented work, rife with contrasts and contradictions (self-) reflective of Jane’s own existential dilemma, intertwining flashbacks with flashforwards, fantasy with reality, blistering social commentary with nihilistic politics, and delirious liquid light color projections (courtesy of artist Mark Boyle) with Aubrey Dewar’s and David Muir’s intimate black-and-white photography.

In addition to being a landmark independent production made entirely outside of the British studio system, the film also marks a foundational moment in the creative partnership between Bond and Arden. Although the two had previously worked together on the New Release documentary film, DALI IN NEW YORK (1966), in which Arden walked the streets of New York with the titular surrealist discussing his work, SEPARATION was arguably the first true marriage of Bond’s and Arden’s creative sensibilities, combining the former’s fascination with subconscious realism with the latter’s proclivities for radical feminist and anti-psychiatry themes.

ANTI-CLOCK
dir. Jane Arden & Jack Bond, 1979
UK. 104 min.
In English.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 16 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, APRIL 24 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, APRIL 28 – 10 PM

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“Post-Ballardian existential sci-fi.”
— WORLD OF ECHO

“A futuristic masterpiece.”
— Claude Chabrol

A groundbreaking marriage of cinema and video art, ANTI-CLOCK is the story of Joseph, a man subjected to intense and bizarre experimental therapies to alleviate his suicidal ideations. Following the unfortunate death of collaborative partner Jane Arden, co-director Jack Bond had ANTI-CLOCK sealed away from the public for 30 years until convinced to revisit and restore the film in 2009 by Arden’s children.

ONE NIGHT ONLY!

FRIDAY, APRIL 28 – 7:30 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)

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Camila Moreiras’ films often bend forms, breezily shapeshifting from the stringently documentary to the purely experiential. Over the course of her burgeoning career, the hispanic artist has taken to finding ways of relating with and representing landscapes and bodies. From the strobes of medical footage seen in NOT FOR MEDICAL USE (2017) to her most recent work, Moreiras constantly engages new ways of marrying intellectual pursuits with exciting structural molds. SINE DIE (2020) uses a quote by Jacques Derrida to frame its investigation around the lingering effects buried plutonium is having on the citizens of Palomares, Spain. The film, much like EL AQUÍ — which the filmmaker wishes to refashion based on conversations with audiences — finds punctures in the everyday where fiction and reality fold into a series of dazzling, permuting visuals packed with hope and pain. Her cinema breaks ground and bends brains in its ruthless pursuit to rethink hidebound cinematic conventions.

NOT FOR MEDICAL USE
dir. Camila Moreiras, 2017
Spain. 4 mins.
Silent.

This early short by Moreiras looks at medical documents to interrogate what it means to be imaged. Moving in quick flickering strokes, NOT FOR MEDICAL USE works to seize the viewer in much the same way their insides appear captured on the screen. This experiential dive into the depths of the human body blurs the lines between what can be thought of as evidence and what as testimony, setting up the foundational grounds of inquiry upon which SINE DIE builds upon.

SINE DIE
dir. Camila Moreiras, 2020
Spain. 15 mins.
Silent with English subtitles.

Amid desert landscapes and chain-link fences, plutonium lay scattered and buried in the town of Palomares, Spain. A voiceover narration describes an undisclosed medical condition wherein land and body converge in uncomfortable manners. Telling two divergent stories in parallel, SINE DIE is responding to real events of physical contamination, whether that be of the earth or the body (the director’s) that together invoke a condition of the chronically present. SINE DIE was shortlisted for both the XXXVII Premios Goya 2023 and the XV Premis Gaudí 2023.

EL AQUÍ (The Here)
dir. Camila Moreiras, 2023
Spain. 33 mins.
[Work-in-Progress]

What starts as an unsanctioned academic conference by a group of Hispanic Studies scholars evolves into a meditation on what it means to move toward a third space of experiential thought.

This space, loosely referred to by the group as ‘infrapolitics’, raises pressing issues regarding the insular and often toxic culture of academia, and the urgent need to resist its demand for doctrinal homogeneity. Moreiras offers a work-in-progress version of her film, hoping the presentation too offers an intervention on its existence and final form.

Camila Moreiras (1986, Athens, Georgia) is a hispanic artist who makes experimental and creative documentaries. She’s particularly interested in relationships between landscape, ecology, and the body proper. Her work has been exhibited and screened in festivals and venues such as IDFA, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, FICG, Laboratory Arte Alameda, San Diego Underground Festival, and Los Angeles Underground Film Forum, where her film Not For Medical Use (2017) won best experimental short in 2018.

Programmed in collaboration with Jordana Mendelson at The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University. This project was supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and Durham Arts Council, local grants administrator.

Special thanks to Camila Moreiras, Jordana Mendelson at NYU KJCC, Pablo Menéndez and Josep Prim at Marvin & Wayne Short Films, and Valérie Delpierre at Inicia Films.

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EASTER BUNNY, KILL! KILL!
dir. Chad Ferrin, 2006
USA. 90 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, APRIL 8 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, APRIL 22 – MIDNIGHT

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When a disabled teenager is tormented by his mother’s lowlife lover and colleagues, a killer masquerading as the Easter Bunny sets out to avenge their heinous crimes. A sleazy and subversive slasher from indie horror provocateur Chad Ferrin, EASTER BUNNY, KILL! KILL! delights in dirtbag depravity, gruesome gore and gallows humor. This Paschaltide, wrap yourself in plastic curtains, surrender to the mammalian driller killer, and make Spectacle your place of worship for EASTER BUNNY, KILL! KILL!.

“Cheap and nasty, EASTER BUNNY, KILL! KILL! is a film made for late-night movie marathons, preferably served up with cans of TAB Cola and Ding Dongs. Indeed, like many of its inspirations, once it’s over you may feel the compulsion to scrape the phantom dirt from underneath your fingernails.”
— Bloody Disgusting

“A blast of sickening fun.”
— McBastard’s Mausoleum

Haga clic aquí para ver una versión en español de esta página.

In 1975, after nearly four decades of Franco’s dictatorship, Spain began to transition into democracy. The most popular cultural boom was the “Movida Madrileña”— a movement that spoke to the creative freedom of the newly flourishing democracy. From opaque repression to a counter-cultural revolution, the main factors left damaging after-effects in the precarious outskirts of big cities: STDs, juvenile delinquency, and drug addiction.

This phenomenon was fictionalized in film by directors such as José Antonio de la Loma and Eloy de la Iglesia, who street casted underage criminals and created alternative narratives, in what would be coined as “Cine Quinqui.” The term “Quinqui” (pronounced “Kinky”) would come to suggest a fearless youth that stole and killed (if necessary) for a living, falling into the vicious cycle of criminal justice provoked by a failed legal system.

The soundtrack to this struggle, both inside and outside of cinema, was in the form of “Rumba Catalana” or the gypsy rock flamenco revolution. These sounds guide the aimless lives of the characters in DEPRISA, DEPRISA by Carlos Saura (who sadly passed away last month), and YO, EL VAQUILLA by José Antonio de La Loma and José Antonio de la Loma Jr.— the first two selection in our cursory survey of 1980s Cine Quinqui. In their study of malpractice and marginality, these films are indicative of Spain’s hobbled transition into democracy.

Decades later, in 2008, the housing burst caused one of Spain’s steepest financial crises, and one of its most wounding results was youth unemployment. In 2010, Yung Beef, the “father of trap” in Spain, released his first song — where he rapped about his life as a drug dealer, his success with women, and compared himself to El Pirri — one of the most (in)famous criminals De la Iglesia ever filmed. Trap in Spain would become much more than a specific music genre, it would turn into a movement, like the “Movida Madrileña” itself, where young artists, full of rage and voice, would create music in completely polar genres under the same scene.

All of this led to the rebirth of the “Quinqui” aesthetic now rebranded “Neo-Quinqui.” At the forefront of this cultural reinvention stands Carlos Salado, whose debut feature CRIANDO RATAS accrued millions of views on YouTube and marked the widespread interest in Cine Quinqui’s representation of financial, sexual, and drug-related precariousness in present-day Spain. Though these artistic renditions of lives driven by destitution have been heavily criticized for decades, they remain representative of cultural identities constructed in response to government shortcomings generation after generation.

To kick off our series, NYU KJCC will be hosting a Q&A between filmmaker Carlos Salado and co-programmer Casilda García. To find out more, please visit the following link.

DEPRISA, DEPRISA (FASTER, FASTER!)
dir. Carlos Saura, 1981
Spain. 99 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

MONDAY, APRIL 3 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, APRIL 18 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 29 – 5 PM

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DEPRISA, DEPRISA (1981) traces the burgeoning romance between Pablo, a disaffected teenage thief, and Angela, an intrepid young bartender, against a life of crime. Directed by the recently deceased Carlos Saura — whose films perceptively embodied the latent frustration pervasive across Spain during its transition to democracy — DEPRISA, DEPRISA won the Golden Bear at the 1981 Berlinale, and stands out as one of the master-filmmaker’s most down-to-earth and affecting works. The flamenco soundtrack serves as the driving force of the film, with exciting scenes to the rhythm of artists such as Lole y Manuel and Los Chunguitos.

YO, ‘EL VAQUILLA’ (I, ‘THE HEIFER’)
dir. José Antonio de la Loma & José Antonio de la Loma Jr., 1985
Spain. 104 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, APRIL 11 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, APRIL 24 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 29 – 7:30 PM

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Based on the life of Juan José Moreno Cuenca (aka ‘The Heifer’) –– who makes a brief appearance in the film –– YO, ‘EL VAQUILLA’ recounts the storied criminal efforts of one of Spain’s most notorious delinquents of the 1970s.

Following up on the success of José Antonio de la Loma’s STREET WARRIORS Trilogy — a series of films that became popular for their lavish fictionalization of Quinqui culture — this collaboration with his son sees the famed Spanish filmmaker stick closer to reality, building a case against institutionally-engendered injustices from the perspective of its eponymous anti-hero. In some ways, the film could be considered a success story for ‘El Vaquilla,’ as the adaptation assisted in creating a more compassionate outlook toward individuals stuck in similar circumstances as its lead. The film’s popularity is also reflected in its soundtrack by Los Chichos, a “Rumba Canalla” classic that led the band to perform across the country, including before the prisoners of Penal de Ocaña where ‘El Vaquilla’ tells his life-story from in the film from behind bars.

CRIANDO RATAS (RAISING RATS)
dir. Carlos Salado, 2016
Spain. 80 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, APRIL 4 – 7:30 PM w/Q&A (This event is $10)
MONDAY, APRIL 17 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 27 – 7:30 PM

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS

SPECIAL EVENT TICKETS (TUESDAY, APRIL 4)

In 2016, Carlos Salado recovered the essence of Cine Quinqui with his feature film debut CRIANDO RATAS. With a modest budget of 5000 euros and a street cast of locals from the marginal neighborhoods of Alicante, Salado shot off and on over the course of six years. Though production had to be halted after Cristo, the film’s leading actor, was imprisoned for two years, the film eventually wrapped and became YouTube’s success, lauded by critics and general viewers alike.

Screening with:

YO ME DROGO (I GET DRUGGED)
dir. Carlos Salado, 2022
Spain. 11 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles,

Following the success of CRIANDO RATAS, Salado has gone on to collaborate with popular Spanish musicians, making short works blurring the line between music videos and short films. These have allowed him to expand the world of his break-out film, offering alternative visions of where Cristo might have ended up following its finale. In YO ME DROGO, Cristo gets caught up in a drug scheme that’s punctuated by a roaring flamenco score from Uña y Carne. Its bleak and blunt qualities epitomize Salado’s filmmaking style.

CASILDA GARCÍA LÓPEZ is a Brooklyn-based Creative Producer from Madrid. At just 20 years old, Casilda graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Film & TV and minors in Spanish and BEMT (Business for Entertainment, Media, and Technology.) García López has a profound passion for Hispanic cultures interviewing prominent figures in the Spanish landscape such as philosopher Ernesto Castro, (ex)flamenco Niño de Elche and electro-queer icon Samantha Hudson. Having worked professionally in development, acquisitions and production in multi-content campaigns of wide-ranging budgets, she yearns to partake in visually and intellectually stimulating content from its creative conception to its final delivery. As Madrid’s León Felipe Youth Poetry Award winner, Casilda believes that all true art is some way or another poetry.

Co-produced by Casilda García and New York University’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center. This series is brought to you in collaboration with NYU KJCC, a NY-based cultural institution promoting research and teaching on the Spanish-speaking world.

Special thanks to Casilda García, Director of NYU KJCC Jordana Mendelson, Associate Director of NYU KJCC Laura Turegano, Brian Beloverac at Janus Films, Rosa Quejia at A ContraCorriente Films, Albert Tercero, Carlos Salado, and Alfred Giancarli.