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See Larry Fessenden at his most primitive! Explore 1980s downtown New York at its most outrageous and obscene! This selection of rarities features the death-defying pratfalls of David “Impact Addict” Leslie and the performance-art stylings of go-go dancer Heather Woodbury. Program 95 min.
White Trash. 1980. USA. Directed by Larry Fessenden. Restaged for the opening sequence of Kelly Reichardt’s River of Grass, Fessenden’s Super 8 film White Trash imagines a rather unusual form of murder and an even more unusual form of compost. 7 min.
Lifeline. 1981. USA. Written and directed by Larry Fessenden. Out of the primeval soup, the muck and maw of prehistory, a man resembling Larry Fessenden discovers fire. He uses it to ward off predators and evil spirits while also creating light, heat, and moving pictures. 13 min.
Impact Addict. 1987. USA. Directed by Larry Fessenden, David Leslie. The Evil Knievel (Gallagher? Jackass?) of downtown 1980s New York, David “Impact Addict” Leslie risked life, limb, and self-pride to relieve his childhood fantasies of kung fu fighting and leaping off tall buildings in performances at the Kitchen and the Public as well as the Staten Island Ferry and Morton Downey Jr. This is his story. 9 min.
Chinatown. 1986. USA. Directed by Larry Fessenden, David Leslie. Ringing in the Chinese New Year on a bustling Chinatown street, David Leslie sets himself afire and metamorphoses from Tiger to Hare. 6 min.
Hollow Venus: Diary of a Go-Go Dancer. 1989. USA. Directed by Larry Fessenden. Screenplay by Fessenden, Heather Woodbury. With Woodbury. Hollow Venus is a forgotten gem, a heady cocktail of 1980s East Village burlesque, performance art, and quasi-improvised restagings of Heather Woodbury’s many strange encounters as a topless dancer. 58 min.
Trailer for Habit. 1995. USA. Written and directed by Larry Fessenden. Of Fessenden’s many jarring, funny movie trailers, Habit’s is one of the best. 2 min.
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