Funeral Parade of Roses 薔薇の葬列

Film

Feature Film

Set in Tokyo’s dazzling underground gay scene, the film follows a violent love triangle between a transgender bar hostess, a drag queen, and a club owner.

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Programme History

Part of Queer East Festival 2020

Director: Toshio Matsumoto
Runtime: 105 Mins
Year: 1969
Country: Japan

Toshio Matsumoto’s shattering, kaleidoscopic masterpiece is one of the most subversive and intoxicating films of the late 1960s. Loosely adapted from Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and set in Tokyo’s dazzling underground gay scene, the film follows Eddie (played by the androgynous actor Peter), a transgender hostess at Bar Genet, who has ignited a violent love triangle with drag queen Leda (Osamu Ogasawara) and the club’s owner Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya). Blending documentary interviews, fictional narratives, and his own unrestrained avant-garde footage, Matsumoto leads us into a dizzying whirl of images and sounds. The film offers a frank, openly erotic and unapologetic portrait of an unseen community of drag queens. and has been restored in 4K from the original 35mm negatives.

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Toshio Matsumoto

Toshio Matsumoto (1932 – 2017) was a pioneering Japanese filmmaker and video artist who played a central role in the development of experimental cinema in postwar Japan. Moving between documentary, narrative film, installation, and experimental media, his work pushed the boundaries of traditional approaches to filmmaking.

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Funeral Parade of Roses 薔薇の葬列

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Director Profile