Orgy of the Devil and Other Forbidden Tapes of Ivan Cardoso (2013)

Directors: Ivan Cardoso, Gurcius Gewdner (co-director)
Writers: Ivan Cardoso, Gurcius Gewdner
Stars: Mustapha Barat, Jackson do Pandeiro, Felipe Falcão

The newest Ivan Cardoso's incursion into pop and experimental film, presenting an incredible collection of 20 short films edited by Gurcius Gewdner, including restored films and new 2012 and 2013 productions, ranging from musicals to erotic films, animations and even newsreels. It also pays homage to the old Cine AC movie theaters and movie screenings, which were popular in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s.

In one sequence of this lurid and delirious prose poem by Brazilian underground bad boy Ivan Cardoso, local pop culture icon José Mojica Marins speaks on camera. A moment later we watch as a woman masturbates over a magazine featuring Coffin Joe, made famous by Marins. In Cardoso’s vision of the world, the division between high and low art was passé even before this was acknowledged by university-level cultural disciplines – and nothing illustrates that better than the scene in which the music of John Cage accompanies the shaving of a woman’s crotch. The film collage demonstrates how close Cardoso’s freethinking work is to blatantly salacious exploitation films, but also how it is deeply rooted in local (pop) culture, which it approaches with romantic fascination. Although he is undoubtedly an outsider among filmmakers, it’s still possible to perceive his approach as artlessly philosophical and timeless – kind of like plastic vampire teeth that never age.

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