The screening is followed by a Q&A with director Angelo Madsen.
A pioneer of the modern primitive movement and a “Gender Flex” icon, Fakir Musafar pioneered and redefined body modification through practices such as piercing, branding, corseting, and suspension, creating a radically self-expressive art that used the human body as its canvas. A photographer, performance artist, and ritualist, Musafar mobilized an entire generation of queer BDSM and performance art communities. Some of his performances include walking while wearing a device that presses many small skewers into his upper body, or hanging in mid-air suspended by hooks in his chest. Filmmaker Angelo Madsen (North by Current, One Night At Babes) weaves together archival material, audio recordings of Musafar himself, and reflections from figures like Annie Sprinkle and Ron Athey to contextualize Musafar’s work as an exploration of expression, resistance, and ritual. ~SM