GAY24 presents LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL + ANGEL'S BODY TEMPERATURE

GAY24 Film Club is proud to partner with Piss Factory to bring new restorations of Akihiro Suzuki's groundbreaking Y2K queer pink film LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL (1999) and its tragically underseen follow-up ANGEL'S BODY TEMPERATURE (2001) to Australia for the first time.

When Takachi, a young queer porn star, is found dead, his friends gather in a small Tokyo bar to share their love for him and collectively piece together his life from the fractured memories they hold. Eventually, his friends Shinpei and Reiko decide to travel to Takachi's Shikoku hometown of Kochi, seeking a clearer picture of their lost friend in a place where all boys seem to be Angels.

Soundtracked by the late 90s Japanese underground and shot on a variety of dreamy and vibrant film stocks, LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL’s status as a Japanese pink film - short, cheaply produced features made for the softcore porn market - has until now kept it out of the New Queer Cinema canon. Long held to be a cult classic within its home country, this recent restoration and re-translation into English allows LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL to finally be reappraised as not only one of the great forgotten queer films of the 1990s, but a triumph of independent Japanese film at large.

Working within the pink film industry, Suzuki saw LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL as an opportunity to push back against the overwhelmingly heterosexist film landscape of the 1990s. “At the time, I felt a sense of rebellion against the heterosexual-dominated world, and wanted to portray sexuality and identity through an ambiguity that cannot be categorized. I wanted to make a 35mm film like an 8mm film, mix various visual media, and include people of diverse sexualities around me in it.”

Following the release of LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL, Suzuki moved from patchwork film stock to hand-held MiniDV cameras for his follow-up ANGEL'S BODY TEMPERATURE. Having played with and stretched to their limits the established structures of pink film with its predecessor, ANGEL'S BODY TEMPERATURE instead looks to the then-burgeoning amateur porn industry for inspiration. In this way, the shift to MiniDV helps facilitate the movement from its predecessor's gorgeous dreaminess toward an almost painful intimacy.

Aketo is a 20-year-old college student living in Tokyo, while his older lover Hiroshi keeps him at arm's length in Kyoto. One day he meets a woman named Harumi who has taken to wandering around Tokyo, and together they enable each other to assert some control over their lives. Sitting somewhere between a sequel and an echo, ANGEL'S BODY TEMPERATURE is amateur porn taken to its logical extreme: all miscommunication, disappointment, and awkward reaching for something just outside your grasp, but within that, momentary glimpses of true beauty and connection.

Released appropriately straight-to-video and until now never translated into English, this screening marks the first time ANGEL'S BODY TEMPERATURE has even been shown in public - a worldwide premiere twenty-five years late, and an opportunity to uncover something beautiful and lost, at long last.

By his own description, the films of Akihiro Suzuki are “neither straight, gay, queer, bisexual, asexual or pornographic, but [rather] anti-heterosexist”. GAY24 Film Club could not be any prouder and more excited to be bringing them to Naarm. Essential viewing for fans of Hideaki Anno's Love & Pop, Lynch's Inland Empire, the early works of Gregg Araki, the music of Les Rallizes Dénudés and Maher Shalal Hash Baz, falling in love with somebody you shouldn't, and the years 1997-2003.

Both films will be shown with full English subtitles. Further accessibility information available here. Misc Rooftop will be open with drink specials before the films from 4pm, and stay open afterwards for a wine and debrief. 💋