MARCH 26 » 11:55p »
MARCH 30 » 9:45p »
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE with Cinematographer NEMANJA JOVANOV
2009, Serbia, 35mm, 90 min.
Director/Screenwriter: Mladen Djordjevic
Cast: Mihajlo Jovanovic, Ana Jovanovic, Predrag Damnjanovic, Radivoj Knezevic
It is the late 1990s and thirty-year-old Marko is years out of film school. Unable to get any of his ideas for daring and provocative filmmaking off the ground in the twilight years of Milosevic-era Serbia, Marko joins forces with the Belgrade art scene’s outcasts to form a sort of “porno cabaret,” a live theatre venture that takes its act on the road, shocking the locals with brazen acts of depravity.
Eventually, they catch the attention of Franz, a reporter who has made a profitable income stream in snuff films as a result of his time spent in the war-torn Balkans. It seems that there are many people willing to be murdered on film in exchange for a considerable sum to provide for their families in the ravages of what-used-to-be Yugoslavia. Marko and his troupe begin producing snuff films for Franz, drawing the attention of the authorities and sending Marko and his crew onto a collision course with oblivion. The Life and Death of a Porno Gang is quite like cinematic nitroglycerin: explosive and unstable. Hoplessness blankets the film under a bleak layer of depravity. This is the underside of a place that you never wanted to go, but are equal parts thrilled and repulsed to be along for the ride. It all makes for a stunning, amusing, disgusting, often depressing, yet frequently funny experience.
— Kevin Monahan
* No one under 18 permitted into this screening.
PLAYING WITH
Raymond May Have Rabies
Ramiro Belanger
15 min.
J.R. uses his obscene drawings as a creative catharsis for his intellectual incapacity while his brother Arnold tries to profit financially from his deviant talent.
