After showcasing two of her documentaries last year, Spectacle is proud to host the New York City premiere of iara lee’s latest feature, THE SAMI SONG OF SURVIVAL. Throughout her prolific career as a cultural film essayist, iara lee intentionally sought out Indigenous voices in political peril. Inspired by her 2010 documentary and participation in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, iara lee established the Cultures of Resistance Network to raise awareness of folks on the margins and the art they create. With lee’s latest, THE SAMI SONG OF SURVIVAL, we’re witnesses to the Sami people, an Indigenous group based in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Undergoing constant oppression against imperial forces and racist colonialism, with one Sami man in particular hypothesizing, “Art could be a weapon”. A motivating mantra that sums up the essence of iara lee’s filmmaking ethos, Spectacle Theater will be screening this alongside two power-defying docs: K2 & THE INVISIBLE FOOTMEN and STALKING CHERNOBYL.

PROCEEDS OF BOX OFFICE WILL GO TOWARDS THE GAZA MUTUAL AID COLLECTIVE

K2 & THE INVISIBLE FOOTMEN
dir. iara lee, 2015
United States, 54 min.
In English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Urdu with English Subtitles

MONDAY, AUGUST 3 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 14 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 18 – 10 PM

GET TICKETS HERE

As a brief reprieve from making strictly activist-driven documentaries, iara lee would center a piece on one of the biggest mountains in the world, K2, and the climbers and porters who endure its brutality. With its location on the border of Pakistan, excursions up the colloquially named “Savage Mountain” are reliant on the hard work of indigenous mountaineers who dedicate their lives to mapping out and understanding the volatile nature of this peak.

Breathtaking cinematography is guaranteed, but where Iara Lee’s essential humanistic bent is felt through highlighting everyday Pakistani life, a banal but necessary observation in a culture where folk in Kashmir are usually portrayed surviving under times of war and/or alleged religious persecution.

STALKING CHERNOBYL
dir. iara lee, 2020
Brazil, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ukraine, United States, 58 min.
In Russian with English Subtitles

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6 – 10 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 10 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22 – 3 PM

GET TICKETS HERE

Exploration after apocalypse

A striking, bite-sized expose on the intersection of dark tourism, historical conservation and extreme cinephilia, STALKING CHERNOBYL chronicles those with the bravado to traverse the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, often illegally, in a manner that evokes Tarkovsky’s beloved sci-fi epic STALKER. Some do this from explicit inspiration from the movie, others have no idea of the film or the book it’s based on, and are simply in it for the thrill of parkour extreme sports.

iara lee sequences these diverse groups of adventures with equal precision, all while ensuring the camera instills that even with all the danger in mind, a hobby of this wild nature is worth the risk.

THE SAMI SONG OF SURVIVAL
dir. iara lee, 2025
Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, United States, 49 min.
In English, Northern Sami, Norwegian and Russian with English Subtitles

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 13 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 25 – 10 PM

GET TICKETS HERE

Indigenous Activism on the Northern Frontier

iara lee’s newest feature focuses on an under-the-radar Indigenous group found in Russia and Lapland, the Sami people. With a long lineage of resisting colonial adversaries, lee uses her own experience of demonstrating art as a means of asserting independence. With various examples from hip-hop to traditional folk music to the annals of work displayed in the Sami Centre for Contemporary Art, THE SAMI SONG OF SURVIVAL rings loud and true for all those looking to vent over the growing fascist evil empires through art and song.

Special thanks to Carlos Pina and the Cultures of Resistance Network

$10 SPECIAL EVENT
FILMMAKER IN PERSON

FRIDAY, AUGUST 14—7 PM

TICKETS

FLUIDØ
Dir. Shu Lea Cheang, 2017
Germany. 80 min.
In English.

FISTING CLUB 1
Dir. Shu Lea Cheang, 2018
Germany. 10 min.
In English

FISTING CLUB 2
Dir. Shu Lea Cheang, 2025
Germany. 20 min.
In English.
New York Premiere!

Presented in collaboration with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art.

Shu Lea Cheang’s new work LOVER LOVE, a commission by the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, has taken up residency in the museum since April. The mammoth work is both highly immersive and highly interactive; moveable screens serve as portals into Shu Lea Cheang’s unmistakable transhumanist worldview. The digital and physical collide in a blooming dream of gender non-conforming utopia. On the occasion of Cheang’s visit to New York this August, Spectacle is thrilled to welcome the artist (whose IKU was a midnight favorite at the theater in 2017) for a one-of-a-kind presentation of cyberpunk queer futures.

The evening begins with Cheang’s glitchy conspiracy thriller FLUIDø, set in a future where the mutated AIDS virus has given birth to a new breed of human whose cum is a highly addictive supernarcotic. “When Shu Lea Cheang’s Fluidø first came out in 2017,” bodyhacking gender theorist Paul Preciado wrote in 2021, “it was meant to be a queer cypherpunk science-fiction film. Now, in the era of global confinement, digital sexuality, and sanitary surveillance, it has become the archeology of our present.”

The feature is paired with the two episodes of Shu Lea Cheang’s (highly explicit) series FISTING CLUB, a self-explanatory (“if this is your first Fisting Club, you have to fist.”) and riotous expression of collective emancipation.

Image in banner courtesy of J. Jackie Baier. Special thanks to Dylan Gamboa, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, and Shu Lea Cheang.

 

 

 

In the August hangover of America’s 250th birthday, an incision in our micro-cinema will open itself to the dense labyrinthine nothing that permeates its tendrils and suffocates the physical world above, infecting and hooking us to an infinite carousel of violence and self-serving detachment. This realm of lack is known to some as the Numb Spiral, a (non)place artist and filmmaker M. Woods has not only returned from, but has sought to map in their immersive —and often intermixed— body of film, photography, VR, and poetry.

Woods will visit Spectacle on Friday August 8th to act as both our tour guide and illicit media-pharmacist through the hallucinatory nightmare of despair and unrest of the first Trump presidency and COVID-19 pandemic, as depicted in their apocalyptic auto-biographical feature documentary COMMODITY TRADING: DIES IRAE. For those brave enough to experience an unsupervised multi-media collage-induced trance, this essential primer in Numb Spiral spelunking will reoccur three more times throughout the month.

On Sunday August 9th, return for a second dose to witness the artist present/perform a series of short video and films works, connecting further nodes among the network of digital sickness.

COMMODITY TRADING: DIES IRAE [NUMB SPIRAL 4]
Dir. M. Woods, 2022.
United States, 87 min.

STROBE WARNING. Scenes in this film contain intense flicker effects unsafe for those sensitive to light.

TICKETS
SATURDAY, AUGUST 8 – 7:30 PM ($10 w/ filmmaker in-person)
TUESDAY, AUGUST 11 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22 – 5 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 30 – 5 PM

“The closest semblance of a plot is a man’s manic odyssey around Los Angeles, which culminates in a virtual reality experience at a Culver City mall. Woods conjures a sense of hyperreality by layering a barrage of effects—extreme fisheye, blurs, animation—to create images hat feel hyper-mediated. The film captures the fleeting thrills of digital life, mirroring the experience of someone feverishly doomscrolling through a TikTok feed full of bright colors and scenes of violence.”

—Lucia Ahrensdorf, Screen Slate

STROBE WARNING. Films in this program contain intense flicker effects unsafe for those sensitive to light.

SPECIAL EVENT TICKETS
SUNDAY, AUGUST 9 – 7:30 PM ($10 w/ filmmaker in-person)

A prologue, epilogue, and appendix all at once for COMMODITY TRADING: DIES IRAE, M. Woods returns with a doctor’s bag of disassociative-media booster shots. Direct animation, inter-media collage, appropriation, vitriolic poetry, cursed family travelogues, and music videos make up this hellish cocktail. Including works preceding and following the creation of Woods’ feature and riding along interrelated streams of consciousness, titles screened in this showcase have rarely (if ever) seen a NY audience –including a few cathartic rows against Spectacle’s reluctant home of modern day Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Works in this program may include, but are not limited to…

FOR DIES IRAE
Dir. M. Woods, 2017.
United States, 6 min.

“a floundering figure or form of nothing born and gasping before bludgeoned by the carpet, pulled swiftly and quickly out before the floor gets bolted down. Just torn flesh, not flesh, but fish flakes and canned meat.”

MELENCOLIA 1: THE END OF THE ALPHABET
2023. United States, 16 min.

“A sadness rolls over me as I gaze into the entrails of this pandora’s box and my shadow cranks a lost appendage for the sake of ontological tangents and bewitched spaces. I want you to witness The Hallucinatory Zone of Neo-Liberal death hounds and lost gazes that expand and contract time. I was nothing, so nothing was lost.”

METASTASIS
2018. United States, 5 min.

“How to have a good time living inside cancerous hypercube. No moving images, just images that appear to be moving. At the cellular level it’s really noisy now. Our resolution is defined by a finite grid. Dissolution of the family structure with a carnival get-down. A pretty lively ditty for a funeral dirge, don’t you think?”

MELENCOLIA 2: DESTITUTION SIGNS
2023. United States, 8 min.

“A nostalgic retread through the 4th plateau of New York City followed by a short polemic against ethnography and hipsters.”

DAILIES FROM DUMPLAND PART 3
2017. United States, 7 min.

“Columbus Circle spiraling down stacks of hell, a fucking urine-soaked bastard and his corporate media frenemies across the street. A deviation, following, touching “here” and craving an empty sex and cataclysmic disorder. Revolutions revolutions revolutions. Just saying, Columbus Circle ain’t far from Williamsburg, hipster youth.”

MELENCOLIA 3: SWEET ASSASSIN
2025. United States, 5 min.

A music video for Brood Faye.

I ONCE WAS LOST
2024. United States, 6 min.

MOCKINGBIRD
2026. United States, 6 min.

A music video for Chestnut.

BODY PROP – MOVEMENT 5 [free disassociating on the numb spiral]
2020. United States, 6 min.

TRT: approx. 65 min.

THE TOWN
A Play by Walker Rutter-Bowman
Directed by Reñazco.
Estimated run time 60 minutes.

FRIDAY, JULY 24 – 7:30PM
SATURDAY, JULY 25 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, JULY 26 – 7:30PM

TICKETS

The Town is an original play that takes place in a diner in a town called Heist. Across the street a crowd of men has gathered outside the bank, possibly wearing masks and carrying what look like guns—at least to some of the diner’s customers. The play unfolds as a series of conversations between the pairs of diners—the Girl and the Mayor, the Robber and the Town, the Mark and the Adjuster—while the proprietors of the town’s local cinemas, Film Hut and Cinema Palace, comment from the wings. In fact these cineastes are in the movie theater, while the other characters are on the screen… until events unfold to collapse this distinction.

In the course of the play, minds are read, thoughts implanted, friendships formed, valuables brandished, claims denied, parents mourned, seats reclined, senses restored, dreams realized, symbols invented, motorbikes inherited, banks robbed.

The Town references a long lineage of heist cinema, from Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) to Heat (1995) to Ben Affleck’s 2010 movie of the same title. The characters of the play span generations of the town’s culture and history, and The Town occurs at a moment of colossal change, not just for the theater owners but for the town’s young citizens, including the Robber and Girl, who must find ways to be initiated into a culture—of robbery, or of art—in a state of often violent transition.

It’s a play about robbery—the taking and making of something beyond oneself—in a town where fresh idealism coexists with weary cynicism, and the love of cinema threatens to prove as corrosive as it is redemptive.

Cast:
The Girl . . . . . . . . . . . Alina Jacobs
The Mayor . . . . . . . . . Vita Taurke
The Robber . . . . . . . . Jonathan Hull
The Town . . . . . . . . . . Margaret Wright
The Mark . . . . . . . . . . Asha Futterman
The Adjuster . . . . . . . . Ryan Tully
The Waitress . . . . . . . . Brittany Dennison
Film Hut . . . . . . . . . . . Blake Robbins
Cinema Palace . . . . . . Jonathan Woollen

This event is $10.

*PLEASE NOTE*
Doors will open at ~7pm, and the play will begin at 7:30pm. We will not be able to accommodate late arrivals, so please be prompt. There will be no bathroom access during the performance.

Somewhere in memory and time, it’s late afternoon. You’re on the playground when a friend stands up and shouts “let’s play POWER RANGERS!” What a good idea. After everyone finishes fighting over who gets to be Red, you count to three and hit the ground running, armed only with finger guns and your imagination. When we were young, we never wanted days like this to end. For those in the mysterious EIYU CLUB, they never did.

Along with the advent of VHS, Laserdisc, and later DVD, Japan would develop an unquenchable thirst for home video content from the early 80s well up until the end of the century, similar to the Straight to Video boom experienced in the US. This format, known locally as V-Cinema, would allow filmmakers to shed the restraints of studio oversight, often developing a more experimental edge.

Enter EIYU CLUB, a group of sentai-loving otaku hoping to leave an impression. After pooling their own personal funds to afford equipment and studio time, the Club would release their first film CYBER LADY SUZUKA in 1998 and relied on word-of-mouth to sell their films and CDs at fan conventions, hobby stores, and online. Almost 30 years on, their work is still finding a strong cult following amongst toku enthusiasts who appreciate their attitude and dedication to costuming, music, extended blooper reels, and improvised explosives.

This July at Spectacle, please enjoy these two hand-selected programs showcasing some of EIYU CLUB‘s finest moments in parking lot fantasy: CYBER LADY SUZUKA and the LILAC series.

PGM. 01: CYBER LADY SUZUKA

CYBER LADY SUZUKA
(サイバーレディ スズカ)
Dir. Nobuharu Kidokoro. 1998.
Japan. 59 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

MONDAY, JULY 06 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 11 – 5:00 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 21 – 10:00 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 30 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS

After witnessing the death of his colleague’s daughter, Suzuka Minamoto, at the hands of the evil ZELDA organization, Dr. Todoroki returns to his lab and implants her with the “Ability Awakening Converter” which revives her into CYBER LADY SUZUKA, a robot maid with a bad habit of falling asleep on the job. When ZELDA returns, Suzuka must exact vengeance and rescue her little sister Haruka from a rogues’ gallery of the organization’s toughest monsters.

Seen as their flagship mascot, CYBER LADY SUZUKA is where it all started for EIYU CLUB!

Screening with:

CYBER LADY SUZUKA II
(サイバーレディ スズカII)
Dir. Nobuharu Kidokoro. 1998.
Japan. 29 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

The sequel! Duh!

PGM. 02: LILAC

WEDNESDAY, JULY 08 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 11 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22 – 10:00 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 30 – 10:00 PM

TICKETS

LILAC VERSION RED ～DREAM OF SHUDDER～
(リラ Ver.Red ドリーム オブ シャダー)
Dir. Yoshihiro Akase. 2001.
Japan. 26 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

A woman is stalked nightly by a mysterious stranger. Her only comforts: the glow of the television and her childhood doll Lila, a gift from her father. But Lila is more than a doll. When the stalker closes in, Lila comes to life—not just to protect her owner, but to also guard the whereabouts of a uniquely powerful weapon known as the Peerless Sword.

DREAM OF SHUDDER is pure somnambulance and acute denpa; perhaps EIYU CLUB’s creepiest creation.

LILAC VERSION BLUE ～PURE HEART～
(リラ Ver.Blue ～Pure Heart～)
Dir. Tetsuya Ozaki. 2001.
Japan. 25 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

LILA IS BACK!

Lonely otaku Daisuke gets lucky and wins an online bid for a life-sized Lila doll. He keeps her in his apartment and orders her around, until one day Lila is awakened by the magic of life. When Daisuke’s rented Idol girlfriend Honoka returns home, an intriguing feud breaks out, and Lila is forced to unlock her magical girl powers.

PURE HEART is a relatively more polished and cinematic experience from her Red sister, incorporating both the Pinocchio story and a pinch of Norse mythology. What a pairing!

DREAM MONSTER CHAO
(ドリームモンスター・チャオ)
Dir. Michihiko Ichio. 2007.
Japan. 21 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

One morning, an ass-slapping goofball called the Dream Monster Chao appears in slacker Haruka’s apartment and offers to help make his treasure hunting dreams come true. When Haruka’s evil landlord arrives to shut down their plans, Chao must kick into high gear and strike back against the forces of evil and property ownership.

Landing more within the bounds of an indie rock comedy, DREAM MONSTER CHAO is stylistically distinct from the LILAC series but thematically linked through its ideas of animacy and service.

Many, many thanks to Gossamer Fansubs for keeping EIYU CLUB alive through their subbing, asset scanning, and video rescue.