Mike Kuchar 1: Sins of the Fleshapoids

Sins of the Fleshapoids is one of the defining films on the 1960s, a lurid odyssey set a million years in the future. Mike Kuchar’s iconic first 16 mm film, co-written with his brother George Kuchar, sits alongside Kenneth Anger’s Scopio Rising 1963 and Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls 1966 as one of the defining works of the underground cinema. Following ‘The Great War’ humanity has forsaken science for self-indulgence and erotic pleasure. In this debased future, labour is left to a race of enslaved Androids, until a rebellious Robot (played by Kuchar regular Bob Cowan) tired of pleasuring his masters decides to join the humans in sin. This legendary film is presented in a brand new 16 mm print and be preceded by Mike Kuchar’s early 8 mm masterpiece The Confessions of Babette 1963 an absurd romp through one woman’s depravity. An uninhibited tell-all account of squalor is brimming with tenderness and affection for the debauched excesses of the heroine.

Presented by Mike Kuchar in person.

Mike Kuchar, USA 1965, 16 mm, colour, 48 min
Starring Bob Cowan, George Kuchar, Donna Kerness, Gina Zuckerman, Maren Thomas and Julius Middleman

Love, a million years in the future, in a world that abandons all mechanical knowledge, and plunges itself into the abyss of erotic pleasure and stomach-churning hate! Delightfully and shamelessly overacted and filmed in blazing colour, Sins Of The Fleshapoids reached a new peak in the cinema of the ridiculous.

Mike Kuchar, USA, 1963, 8 mm transferred to 16 mm, colour, 15 min

This early 8 mm film by Mike Kuchar, following his collaborations with his twin brother George, features one of his subversive heroines, Babette, who tells her life story leaving no turgid stone unturned.

Programme duration: 63 min

The Confessions of Babette has been preserved by Anthology Film Archives through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Foundation.