1965, 16mm, color
Curated by Karl McCool

The Phoenix
7PM

A key work of queer and Latino New York underground film, José Rodríguez-Soltero described Jerovi as his “sexual probe of the narcissus myth.” A boldly erotic, dreamlike portrait of Jeroví Sansón Carrasco, who also commissioned and financed the film, Jerovi offers a Narcissus for the 1960s period of sexual revolution, marking a significant shift from the introspective and psychoanalytic use of narcissism by previous queer experimental filmmakers. Made barely a year after the seizure of Flaming Creatures and at the time when Scorpio Rising was on trial for obscenity, Jerovi similarly faced censorship, leaving one film festival committee “visibly shaken,” according to Gregory Markopoulos. Long neglected before its recent restoration, Jerovi exemplifies the queer and Puerto Rican aesthetic strains that helped shape underground film and art in the 1960s Lower East Side and East Village.

José Rodríguez-Soltero was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico in 1943. Rodríguez-Solterto made his first film, El Pecado Original, in 1964, while at the University of Puerto Rico. Soon after, he moved to New York, where, from the mid-1960s through the 1970s, he produced work in 8mm, 16mm, and video, including the films Jerovi (1965), Lupe (1966) and the double-screen projection Dialogue with Che (1968). A significant figure in New York Underground Film, Rodríguez-Soltero was the friend, collaborator and occasional roommate of Mario Montez, Charles Ludlam and Jack Smith. During the 1960s, he was editor-in-chief of the short-lived film quarterly, Medium, and later taught film and video seminars at Cooper Union College of the Arts and Sterling-Manhattan Public Video Access Center. Rodríguez-Soltero died in 2009.

The Phoenix is a long-time cornerstone of the East Village scene. Located between 1st Avenue and Avenue A, the Phoenix is open from 4pm to 4am, every day. Its bar counter dates back more than 70 years and its jukebox, though not quite as old, has gained its own fame. The Phoenix has a long tradition of hosting queer live music and literary events, keeping a vibrant queer presence in the East Village.

The screening will be accompanied by a reading of poetry by Roy Garrett, whose work will be posthumously published in issue 8 of Spunk [arts] Magazine, released summer 2012.