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Film Under Fire: An Evening of Objectionable Art
The NEA's had a free pass this year, as America's self-appointed moral watchdogs have sharpened their incisors instead on the presidency. Far from Washington, and in full recognition that artists will be back in the cross hairs soon enough, the firebrands at the San Francisco Cinematheque offer an election season program of classic "taboo" films. Sex and the human body are the recurring themes, from Anne Severson's Near the Big Chakra (which focuses, literally, on vaginas) to Scott Stark's Noema, a savvy deconstruction of porno expectations. Peggy Ahwesh's visually lush The Color of Love transforms crass footage from an old hard-core flick into pure poetry, while at the other end (so to speak) we have Kurt Kren's excruciatingly graphic 16/67: September 20 -- Gunter Bros -- or, as it's called by English filmmakers, Eating, Drinking, Pissing and Shitting Film. Seminal works by Luther Price, Lewis Klahr, and Valie Export round out the bill.

-- Michael Fox

"Film Under Fire: An Evening of Objectionable Art" screens Sunday, Nov. 1, at 7:30 p.m. at the S.F. Art Institute, 800 Chestnut (at Jones). Admission is $7; call 558-8129.