MoMA presents the premiere of Pinochet Porn (2008–16), an epic experimental film embodying the multifaceted work of the late artist Ellen Cantor (1961–2013). Cantor worked on this feature-length, episodic narrative, about the intertwined lives of five children and their maturation into adulthood, for the final five years of her life. Produced using Super 8mm, archival footage, and animated drawings, Pinochet Porn takes the form of a soap opera, at once tragic and comical and marked by a subversive sexuality. The story weaves between personal, political, and historical circumstances, obliquely revolving around the political discord of General Augusto Pinochet’s regime in Chile. The film is a document of an extended moment in New York and London avant-garde art and culture, featuring a range of artists, curators, writers, filmmakers, fixtures of the underground, musicians, and their children. The screening will be followed by a discussion between Lia Gangitano, Founding Director of Participant Inc.; filmmaker John Brattin; and Stuart Comer, MoMA’s Chief Curator of Media and Performance Art.
Pinochet Porn. 2008–16. Directed by Ellen Cantor