Film Screenings / Programs / Series
‘MEDUSA OF THE ROSES’ BOOK RELEASE SCREENINGS
August 21 – August 30
The lurid romanticism of French author Jean Genet has inspired the work of countless queer writers and filmmakers for over eighty years. In the realm of literature, the new novel Medusa of the Roses, by author and artist Navid Sinaki, is one such work that is suffused with Genet’s sensibility. To celebrate its publication by Grove Atlantic, we’ll be hosting Sinaki in person, for special screenings of two films that were adapted from or influenced by Genet’s work: Toshio Matsumoto’s FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (1969) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film, QUERELLE (1982) (the latter of which we’ll be showcasing via a full week-long revival run).
In Medusa of the Roses, Sinaki’s debut novel, queer love blossoms and brutalizes in modern day Tehran, where homosexuality is criminalized but still electrifies the Persian underground. The films Sinaki has selected for these screenings similarly center on extremes of love forced to the fringes of society across decades, countries, and genres. QUERELLE is a tawdry and tantalizing adaptation of Genet’s own novel, with sun-stained theatricality, while the queer and trans community of 1960s Japan is the subject matter for FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES, where love begets mythological madness. In both films, and in Sinaki’s novel, queerness breeds the sensual and the sordid, mythology and mayhem, roses and snakes. What results is a kaleidoscope of work as striking as the poetry of their predecessor.
Navid Sinaki will be here in person to introduce the screenings of FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES on Wed, Aug 21 and QUERELLE on Fri, Aug 23.
Click here for info about the week-long revival run of QUERELLE.
For more info about Medusa of the Roses, visit: https://groveatlantic.com/book/medusa-of-the-roses/
Special thanks to Navid Sinaki; Brian Belovarac (Janus Films); and David Marriott (Arbelos).
