Afterparty, dir. Alex Matraxia, UK 2021, 8 min. 53 sec.
This film is available to watch from 1 to 6 February 2022.
Afterparty takes place in a single night. Charlie goes through their usual routine; a record on the vinyl player, sifting through old photos, preparing themselves a bath. But during the evening, Charlie’s bathtime is interrupted by some old friends who decide they’re going to crash – friends they haven’t seen in years. Though Charlie is bitter about old history and reluctant to host, their friends help them come to terms with what they’ve gone through, what was left unsaid, what it means to remember and what remembering does to us – especially for Charlie who floats seamlessly between the past and the present.
Though the AIDS crisis is never named, the pandemic haunts the film’s joy and laughter. Artifice and sentiment come together to host the painfully real experience of growing old, losing a sense of your past self, as well as losing your friends. Restaging old memories, Afterparty blurs the line between what’s real and what isn’t, looking at the way queer memory accommodates both trauma and nostalgia, loneliness and solidarity, fantasy and disappointment.
Credits
no. 236848.