Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick, 1999. Photo: NFSA.
R18+ 158 Mins | 1999 | 35MM | UK | D: Stanley Kubrick
Arc Cinema presents a series of irreverent Friday night filmic feasts, curated and hosted by drag artist and culture warrior Venus Mantrap. Cult Classics with Venus Mantrap plumbs the archives to showcase cinema with bite: films that unnerve, push buttons, ask questions and just look good on the big screen! Gather your tribe of misfits and rowdy rebels and join Venus for edgy movies, fan favourites and hidden gems.
Slip on your mask and join Venus Mantrap for the best Halloween screening in town, starring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.
Shrouded in secrecy during production, this surreal and suspenseful 90s classic explores desire, intimacy and the shadowy horrors of Manhattan’s upper echelons. The final film from legendary director Stanley Kubrick, this erotic thriller takes place during a single evening, as a doctor (Cruise) embarks on a sexual odyssey like you’ve never imagined.
‘A spellbinder: provocatively conceived, gorgeously shot and masterfully executed’ – Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
‘It is the very preposterousness of Eyes Wide Shut which is the key to the achievement it represents: it has a singular excessiveness – at once gamey, florid and enigmatically deadpan – which underpins this picture’s rich, sensuous style’ – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Presented on a 35mm film print from the NFSA collection.
Includes a pre-screening introduction and live performance by Venus Mantrap.
VENUS MANTRAP
Venus Mantrap is an androgynous construct whose roots are firmly planted in the world of drag. Exploring aspects of cabaret, performance-art and comedy during live shows, Mantrap has produced The Bowie Ball and starred in the one-person-shows Life, Love and Lip Syncing and Valley of the Molls. Venus is regularly found at Smith’s Alternative as the MC of Cabaret Voltaire and has been a featured artist at Glitterbox, LGBTIQ+ Elders Dance Club, Drag Cabaret and Finucane and Smith’s touring show Dancehall. Follow them on Instagram at @the_venus_mantrap.
The details
What: Eyes Wide Shut screening + introduction and live performance by Venus Mantrap
When: 8 pm, Friday 25 October 2024
Where: Arc Cinema, NFSA Acton
Cost: $14–16 via the NFSA website
