Saved events

City of Lost Souls & Romeo & Julio (15*) + Introduction by Stewart Home

Stewart Home's Occasional Barbican Film Club

A person wearing a bandana nad large round glasses shouts next to a person wearing heavy makeup and hair curlers, grimacing.

The latest iteration of Stewart Home’s Occasional Barbican Film Club took as its starting point Shakespeare Tower, bringing unlikely pairing of two very different examples of queer underground cinema.

Shakespeare wrote “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” The intersectional queer-punk musical City of Lost Souls (1983) improves on that by deconstructing its gender binaries. The performers - except for Jayne County who plays a cis woman - act out thinly fictionalised versions of themselves as American exiles in Berlin. Long recognised as a queer cult classic, between the cabaret songs and outrageous post-punk performances, director Rosa von Praunheim captures many intimate and touching moments of love and rejection.

Ivan Peric's Romeo & Julio (2009) is a Croatian queer break-dance trash musical comedy/parody based on Romeo & Juliet. Even the climatic fight between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris in Way of the Dragon (1972) is queered and worked into this notorious shot on DV feature.

Tagged with: Cinema

1983, West Germany, Rosa von Praunheim, 94 mins

2009, Croatia, Ivan Peric, 65 mins

Give a year of art, music, film and theatre

They'll enjoy free entry to all exhibitions, discounts, no booking fees, priority booking, Members' events, our Members' Lounge and more (T&Cs apply)

Cinema 2