When her bereaved father the king (Jean Cocteau muse and lover the handsome Jean Marais!) manifests dark desires, it’s up to a plucky princess (a glittering Catherine Deneuve!) and her helicopter-owning fairy godmother (the diaphanous Delphine Seyrig) to make their escape and engineer a happy ending! Also there is a donkey who shits gold coins.
A transcendently beautiful musical fairytale by the French New Wave’s undersung queer fabulist Jacques Demy (whose bisexuality and death from AIDS has been historically downplayed out of misguided deference to his beloved wife Agnes Varda), DONKEY SKIN is Demy’s dazzling candy-box – the wry knowingness and melancholy of his triumphs UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (1964) and DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT (1967) spliced with the dreamy fairytale work of Jean Cocteau (Beauty and the Beast overtly referenced throughout) and a post-modern winkiness to the fairytale genre that predates both SHREK and THE LAST UNICORN.
Join Dumpster Raccoon Cinema in celebrating this triumph of a queer filmmaker and a delightful romp in a candy-coloured wonderland! With video preshow, host Anthony Oliveira, live performance, and cocktails by the Shameful Tiki Room!