“Compelling and persuasive, with a lingering resonance that will likely affect how - or if - its audience watches porn in the future.” - Kimber Myers, Crooked Marquee
“Thyberg…approaches her subject with such a clinical gaze that it's hard to shake the feeling that she's doing something revolutionary.” - Esther Zuckerman, Thrillist
March 14 at 6pm | The first of three “body horror” films in this series, PLEASURE has no supernatural or futuristic events—just the relentless commodification of sex that is the SoCal porn industry. To the protocols of the well-worn A STAR IS BORN narrative, Thyberg adds Linnéa / Bella Cherry, a Swedish heroine with unparalleled ambition. The “industry” that we see through her eyes is just that: a site of labor that, like all other forms of work, features a spectrum of conditions ranging from dignified to traumatically exploitative. Winner of Jury Prizes at numerous film festivals including Deauville, Ghent and Göteborg.
Awards & Nominations
Nominee - World Cinema - Drama Grand Jury Prize, Sundance
Winner - FIPRESCI Prize, Best Feature Film, Göteborg Film Festival
Gore Capitalism Lecture Series: Professor Daniel R. Quiles presents Gore Capitalism, a lecture series centered on the everyday “horror” we are living through and how the individual gets caught in uneven wars between classes, races, genders, sexual orientations, healthy and sick, states and citizens. Presented in collaboration with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Art History, Theory and Criticism, and Film, Video, New Media, and Animation departments. View full series here.
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