UCLA Film & Television Archive, Outfest and The Andrew J. Kuehn Jr. Foundation present

Swoon (1992)

Swoon (1992)
February 3, 2012 - 7:30 pm
Billy Wilder Theater
In-person: 
filmmaker Tom Kalin, scholar B. Ruby Rich and actor Craig Chester.

Directed by Tom Kalin

In 1924, Nathan Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb, gay collegiate lovers, murdered a child for the thrill. Objects of fascination and disgust for years afterward, their story has been told on film without acknowledgment of their sexuality. Tom Kalin’s seductive narrative declines to hide or apologize for anything. Unfolding like a film noir, it depicts sexuality as mysterious and the murderous impulse as a metaphorical extension of sexual drives.

Producer: Christine Vachon. Screenwriter/Editor: Tom Kalin. Cinematographer: Ellen Kuras. Cast: Daniel Schlachet, Craig Chester, Ron Vawter, Michael Kirby, Michael Stumm.

Digital video, b/w, 95 min.

Part of: 
"NQC @ 20: Revisiting New Queer Cinema"
Preceded by:

Jollies (1990)

Directed by Sadie Benning

A diary of her early obsessions with other girls, Sadie Benning’s short film (a cult favorite) captures a modern, young lesbian’s anxiety and delight in a perfect distillation, encoded in black-and-white images taken with a toy camera.

Digital video, b/w, 11 min.