Showtimes
Saturday, July 26
9:30pm
Ticketing
$12 /Single Ticket
$18 /Double Feature with Tampopo
$45 /Series Pass
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Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) is a kaleidoscopic collision of avant-garde experimentation, queer expression, and raw emotional power.
A radical reimagining of the Oedipus myth set in Tokyo’s 1960s underground drag scene, the film follows Eddie, a charismatic club hostess navigating a labyrinth of memory, desire, and identity. Shot in crisp black-and-white with jolts of documentary realism and bursts of surrealism, Funeral Parade of Roses bends time, breaks the fourth wall, and blends fiction and reality until everything blurs into something ecstatic and new.
Blending cinéma vérité with surrealist flourishes, Matsumoto shatters traditional storytelling to explore gender identity, desire, and performance in ways that were decades ahead of their time. With candid portrayals of drag culture, trans femininity, and queer community, Funeral Parade of Roses offers an unapologetic and emotionally complex portrait of life on the margins.
Long unavailable and now stunningly restored, Matsumoto’s landmark work predates and influenced everything from A Clockwork Orange to New Queer Cinema. Its fearless genre-breaking, emotionally charged style makes it a perfect fit for Anime Club Presents—a series devoted to the unclassifiable, the unforgettable, and the beautifully strange.
JULY 26 DOUBLE FEATURE
Closing out this year’s Anime Club Presents series, this genre-bending double feature pairs culinary comedy with radical queer cinema for a night that’s as bold as it is unforgettable. First, Juzo Itami’s Tampopo (1985) serves up a savory mix of ramen obsession, western-style heroism, and absurdist comedy. It’s a food film like no other—sweet, surreal, and steaming with style. Then, Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) plunges into Tokyo’s 1960s queer underground, following Eddie, a transgender bar hostess, in a hallucinatory, genre-smashing reimagining of Oedipus Rex. Visually dazzling and politically radical, it’s a cornerstone of LGBTQ+ cinema.
A perfect final course: joyful, defiant, and deeply devoted to the strange magic of Japanese film.
ANIME CLUB PRESENTS 2025
Our Anime Club Presents series returns July 10-26, marking four years of anime programming at FACETS and a growing community of fans who crave the bold, bizarre, and unforgettable. Learn more and view the full series here.
