LOADING
Directed by Shu Lea Cheang | 86 minutes | 18+ | Australian Premiere |
10:00pm Saturday, 31 May | Estonian House | Buy Tickets | Buy Passes
Widely celebrated for her genre-bending contributions to queer cinema and media art, net art nomad and cyberfeminist Shu Lea Cheang’s multidisciplinary work deals with issues of institutional oppression, sexual politics, and global capitalism expressed through psychedelic cyberpunk scenarios, multimedia collages, and erotic CGI-aided spectacle. In other words: very cool stuff. BUFF is proud to present a double feature of Cheang’s 2000 feature IKU (Director’s Cut!!) and its decades-later brain-expanding sequel UKI (2023) for the first time ever in Australia.
UKI
THIS ISN'T SEX. THIS IS LOVE. SET YOUR ELECTRIC SHEEP FREE RANGE
UKI is a sequel to I.K.U. that follows the continuing journey of rebellious sex android Reiko. No longer of any use after a life of sex data-mining, Reiko is dumped in E-Trashville, a 3D-rendered futuristic take on the landfill from Cheang’s career-defining Fresh Kill (1994). As Reiko’s body and mind are transformed into something bigger than herself, human residents of infected city congregate in a lonely diner to discuss and maybe resist the bioengineering schemes of that sinister company GENOM Co.
The digital world of UKI is a junkily beautiful CG dumping ground, and the real world lives inside recreations of Edward Hopper paintings. Both zones are alienated and at the whim of an amoral surveillance state willing to use its citizens as guinea pigs for nefarious purposes. UKI resists description and begs to envelop you in a big dark room, surrounded by fellow freaks.
SIMILAR: Death Stranding, New Rose Hotel, Center Jenny, Tetsuo The Iron Man
"UKI is not just allegory or parable, but a plea for action against biowarfare and those complicit." - Katherine Franco, Screen Slate
"When I show I.K.U. I will say, 'I want you to experience a collective orgasm.' With my new movie UKI, I will say, 'Take a ride together to sense solidarity building.' " - Shu Lea Cheang, interview with Ayanna Dozier in Screen Slate
Co-Presented with Gay24
Country: Germany
Year: 2023
Language: English