In a post-apocalyptic world, those who can no longer have sex force the ones who can for their entertainment. 

Made at the tail end of the Golden Age of Pornography, Stephen Sayadian’s Café Flesh is the strange convergence of the American sexual revolution pre-AIDS and the countercultural punk and New Wave art movements. Coming from a background of production design, writing satire and doing design work for magazines such as Hustler, and having one foot in the incredibly vibrant late ‘70s/early ‘80s L.A. punk and New Wave movements, Sayadian’s film is almost anti-porn – not as in viewing it negatively but as in the antithesis of what a “porno” is supposed, and expected, to be.

Despite being incredibly graphic and visually provocative there’s a shocking lack of prurient sex. What we get instead is a surrealist post-punk cabaret of Cold War socio-political commentary. Café Flesh imagines a post-nuclear world where most survivors are Sex Negatives—people who become violently ill if they attempt sex—while the few remaining Sex Positives are forced to perform for them as live entertainment at the titular nightclub.

Pushing the boundaries of both art and pornography, this is a truly transgressive piece of filmmaking that fully subverts the form it’s utilizing. Is something “porn” just because it depicts material that is traditionally considered pornographic, especially if its goal isn’t necessarily to sexually arouse but to comment on sexual arousal itself? 

This screening will be the Chicago premiere of this year’s brand new 4K restoration of the film. We’re also incredibly excited to be welcoming the writer/director Stephen Sayadian for an in-person appearance and Q&A about both the film and his wildly interesting life.