Capital Celluloid 2015 - Day 45: Sat Feb 14

Venus In Furs (Franco, 1969): Barbican Cinema, 9.25pm


Valentine's Day is a date when most of the independent film houses in the capital pull out the stops. Josh Saco, who produces the Cigarette Burns screenings, has won hands down this year.

Here is the Cigarette Burns Facebook page devoted to tonight's screening. 

The American Genre Film Archive will be supplying a rare, original 35mm release print and Stephen Thrower will be providing the introduction.

Barbican introduction:
This gorgeous, dreamlike tale of erotic obsession from Spanish director Jess Franco was inspired by a conversation with legendary jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, who described to him one of the long reveries he experienced while playing a solo.

A trumpet player in an Istanbul jazz venue witnesses the murder of a beautiful blonde jet-setter at the hands of three thrill-seeking aristos (among them depraved, blood-supping playboy Klaus Kinski). Haunted by the memory of this incident, he moves to Rio and begins an affair with a nightclub singer but becomes increasingly obsessed with a mysterious woman who is a dead-ringer for the murdered Wanda.

A winning combination of softcore grindhouse and avant-garde techniques, this film is as free-form as great jazz and features a lively jazz-influenced score by British musician Manfred Mann and his band, some of it performed on screen.


Here (and above) is the trailer.

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