Curt McDowell Programme #1: Stinky Wieners and Dreamy Beavers
Don’t miss this special celebration of gay artist Curt McDowell; the first of two programmes, all films newly restored on 16mm by the Academy Film Archive.
Beaver Fever (1974)
These members of the filmmaking team are expected to attend the festival:
Mark Toscano, Curator/Preservationist
See the full list of visiting festival guests. Please note that we can't guarantee guest attendance at any particular screening.
Curt McDowell’s short films cover a wide range of stylistic and thematic territory, including musical theatre, sex, screwball comedy, abstract narrative, sex, diaristic collage, deviancy, sex, deconstructed Hollywood tropes, sex, and sex. From his cheeky yet moving self-portrait Confessions to the rarely seen absurdist melodrama Beaver Fever (starring George Kuchar as Hunk), this programme of early short films hits all the above keywords, often several in a single film.
Mark Toscano
Total running time 74min
Ainslie Trailer (For Underground Cinema 12)
USA 1972. 2min
Confessions
USA 1971. 11min
Wieners And Buns Musical
USA 1972. 14min
True Blue And Dreamy
USA 1973. 13min
Dora Myrtle
USA 1973. 9min
The Mean Brothers “Get Stood Up”
USA 1973. 4min
Stinky-Butt
USA 1974. 3min
Beaver Fever
USA 1974. 20min
Projected in 16mm
Archive Film Restorations: Curt McDowell
Gay San Francisco artist Curt McDowell made experimental films that were bold, hilarious, confessional and exploratory. Collaborator and lover George Kuchar said ‘Life for him was a fast track to fast times that included devilish detours into forbidden erogenous zones.’ Though best known in the UK for the multi-sexual romp Thundercrack!, he in fact made over thirty films before succumbing to AIDS in 1987. We are delighted to present two whole programmes of his bawdy, life-affirming, frequently sexually explicit work, all titles newly restored on 16mm by the Academy Film Archive and curated and introduced by the Academy’s Mark Toscano.
William Fowler
Presented in partnership with 
