Pinochet Porn — Ellen Cantor’s dark feature at Glasgow Film Festival 2019
A MAP screening curated by artist Georgia Horgan
CCA Cinema, Friday 22 February, 20.15
To avoid disappointment click here to book online
“Walking through Tenerife wearing a hand-drawn clown mask, nearly mad from grief, I realized I could no longer safely draw on love for inspiration. For seven years he had been my muse, now I had to rethink my entire art practice. I tried to think what else interested me enough to engulf my life—perhaps my friendships. I was thinking a lot about my friend Deborah Drier, an exquisite writer, editor, fashion diva; she had just had a double lung transplant and open heart surgery. I was wondering what aspects of our lives are free choice. Is tragedy a choice? What was her childhood like, a girl genius born in Queens 1948?”
Ellen Cantor, from ‘Pinochet Porn in progress’, MAP Magazine #19, September 2009
Contributing to MAP’s early print editions, Ellen Cantor was an acclaimed artist working in drawing, film, painting, sculpture, drawing, video art, film, painting, sculpture, as well as writing, curating exhibitions and screenings. This film was completed posthumously by friends and collaborators, following her instructions.
Collaging Super 8, archival footage and animation, Pinochet Porn is an epic tragicomic-erotic soap opera. The film tells the intertwined stories of five people growing up under the Pinochet regime in Chile within the broader framework of Cantor’s exploration of autobiography and collaboration. Traversing registers from subversive sexuality to the horrors of fascism, Pinochet Porn weaves together the personal and political with chaotic elegance.
Director Ellen Cantor Cast Ellen Cantor, Lia Gangitano, Harri Kupiainen, Patrick Blumer, Stephen Ward, Jim Fletcher
UK / USA 2008–2016, 123minutes, English and Spanish with English subtitles
Thanks to Electronic Arts Intermix, Estate of Ellen Cantor and Glasgow Film Festival 2019
