28th October – 15th November 2026
Exploring communities of pleasure by envisioning the revolutionary potential of sex and desire beyond the confines of the bedroom. Across fiction, documentary, artist film and porn, these films frame desire at its most expansive, each an entry into an erotic world harnessing hedonism to smother social taboos.
This short season brings together four transgressive works from Japan, USA, Germany and Mexico to consider how group desire can become a political, world-making force. From the cybersexual techno futures of Shu Lea Cheang’s I.K.U. and the mythic community of a Black lesbian strip-club documented in Leilah Weinraub’s Shakedown, to the gallery of S&M performance art in Monika Treut & Elfi Mikesch’s Seduction: The Cruel Woman, and finally to the spiritual longing of late-night cruising in Julián Hernández’s Raging Sun, Raging Sky. These films locate eroticism in rarely glimpsed utopic spaces of resistance.
Inspired by Xuanlin Tham’s writing on Revolutionary Desires, the season asks what becomes possible once sex is not quarantined as a private indulgence, but is instead framed as a way of crafting alternative forms of social life? At a time of expanding censorship, these films offer unruly alternatives. Each of these directors position cinema itself as an embodied encounter whereby the bodies that touch and desire on screen become intertwined with those of their audiences in the dark.
Collective Visions of Pleasure invites audiences into the iconoclastic realms of erotic cinema, where our own desires might be unshackled.
Exploring communities of pleasure by envisioning the revolutionary potential of sex and desire beyond the confines of the bedroom. Across fiction, documentary, artist film and porn, these films frame desire at its most expansive, each an entry into an erotic world harnessing hedonism to smother social taboos.
This short season brings together four transgressive works from Japan, USA, Germany and Mexico to consider how group desire can become a political, world-making force. From the cybersexual techno futures of Shu Lea Cheang’s I.K.U. and the mythic community of a Black lesbian strip-club documented in Leilah Weinraub’s Shakedown, to the gallery of S&M performance art in Monika Treut & Elfi Mikesch’s Seduction: The Cruel Woman, and finally to the spiritual longing of late-night cruising in Julián Hernández’s Raging Sun, Raging Sky. These films locate eroticism in rarely glimpsed utopic spaces of resistance.
Inspired by Xuanlin Tham’s writing on Revolutionary Desires, the season asks what becomes possible once sex is not quarantined as a private indulgence, but is instead framed as a way of crafting alternative forms of social life? At a time of expanding censorship, these films offer unruly alternatives. Each of these directors position cinema itself as an embodied encounter whereby the bodies that touch and desire on screen become intertwined with those of their audiences in the dark.
Collective Visions of Pleasure invites audiences into the iconoclastic realms of erotic cinema, where our own desires might be unshackled.
This program is curated by Nico Hughes and presented in association with the National Film and Television School.
Programme
Wednesday 28 October, 8.30pm
I.K.U. + Introduction
Reiko, a shape-shifting android, embarks on a cybersexual odyssey collecting data for a shadowy corporation. Each sexual encounter dissolves the binaries of gender and sexuality in a neon-lit orgy of moaning, techno beats and vintage CGI.
Thursday 5 November, 8.40pm
Shakedown + Introduction
Seamlessly weaving hypnotic club footage with intimate interviews, Leilah Weinraub crafts an intimate portrait of a Black-owned lesbian strip club in early aughts Los Angeles.
Thursday 12 November, 8.40pm
Seduction: The Cruel Woman + Introduction
A vampy exploration of power and performance that follows an icy dominatrix who runs an S&M gallery. Her devoted lovers enact elaborate rituals of submission, surrendering themselves to her sadistic games.
Sunday 15 November, 4.00pm
Raging Sun, Raging Sky + Introduction
Three young men cruise through the nocturnal streets of Mexico City, their paths repeatedly crossing as sex and solitude draw them together. As the urban world gives way to Mayan theologies, queer desire takes a mythic turn.
Wednesday 28 October, 8.30pm
I.K.U. + Introduction
Reiko, a shape-shifting android, embarks on a cybersexual odyssey collecting data for a shadowy corporation. Each sexual encounter dissolves the binaries of gender and sexuality in a neon-lit orgy of moaning, techno beats and vintage CGI.
Thursday 5 November, 8.40pm
Shakedown + Introduction
Seamlessly weaving hypnotic club footage with intimate interviews, Leilah Weinraub crafts an intimate portrait of a Black-owned lesbian strip club in early aughts Los Angeles.
Thursday 12 November, 8.40pm
Seduction: The Cruel Woman + Introduction
A vampy exploration of power and performance that follows an icy dominatrix who runs an S&M gallery. Her devoted lovers enact elaborate rituals of submission, surrendering themselves to her sadistic games.
Sunday 15 November, 4.00pm
Raging Sun, Raging Sky + Introduction
Three young men cruise through the nocturnal streets of Mexico City, their paths repeatedly crossing as sex and solitude draw them together. As the urban world gives way to Mayan theologies, queer desire takes a mythic turn.
