Skin Flick by Bruce La Bruce as part of Akimbo’s Sweet 16th Anniversary Celebration

Part of Fall 2015

In November of 1999, the Toronto-based, arts newsletter Akimbo launched its service with a post promoting an upcoming Pleasure Dome screening of Bruce LaBruce’s Skin Flick. The sold-out screening of LaBruce’s first foray into brazen pornographic filmmaking was attended by plainclothes police officers, directed to the gay skinhead romp following accusations about the film’s supposedly hateful material. No charges were pressed, and since then LaBruce has become an iconoclast in queer art-terrorism. The film, centered around a class war between a bourgeois middle class gay couple and a group of gay skinheads, is at once satirical, comedic and fiercely political. Sixteen years later it may be harder to “shock” an audience, but Skin Flick confirms that no one films an onanistic scene featuring a copy of Mein Kampf quite like Bruce LaBruce. This special anniversary screening of the film commemorates Akimbo, LaBruce, & Pleasure Dome’s enduring commitment to promoting polarizing work.