BIFF Offscreen: De Profundis
Oct 15, 2026 1:30pm — 8:30pm
FREE
Screening Thursday, October 15 at 1:30PM + 3PM + 6PM at Burchfield Penney Art Center.
DE PROFUNDIS
Lawrence Brose (Dir), 65 minutes, USA, Special Offscreen/Onscreen Presentation
DE PROFUNDIS is a three part, hand-processed experimental film based on Oscar Wilde's prison letter DE PROFUNDIS. Incorporating home movies from the 1920's and early gay male erotica, along with images from Radical Faerie gatherings, queer pagan rituals, drag performances and images of confinement, this film sets up a haunting investigation of queerness, masculinity, history and sexuality. These images are buttressed against a soundtrack composed of Wilde's aphorisms, a voice and piano setting of Wilde's prison letter, and multi-tracked interviews with a diverse group of contemporary gay men.
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it." - Oscar Wilde
"Taking its cue from Oscar Wilde, DE PROFUNDIS holds up a mirror to gay sexuality and plumbs the tensions reflected there. Brose makes film itself into the protagonist of his exploration. With images and sounds constantly decaying and shifting and contaminating each other, film becomes a metaphor of the transforming self that Wilde prized for corrupting a sense of sexual normalcy. DE PROFUNDIS embraces Wildesque deviance and cautions that the desire for normalization prevalent among contemporary gays threatens to contain it. Serenity in sophistication is a triumph - like the deviance of DE PROFUNDIS, which, achieved in an age too terrified to be deviant, lies in the film's unflinching honesty and terrifying beauty." - John Palattella
Music by Frederic Rzewski with additional sound compositions by Douglas Cohen.
This free offscreen/onscreen film event will only screen for one day during the fest – don't miss it!
Exhibition copy and 16mm film scans courtesy of The Film-Makers' Cooperative.
Many thanks to CEPA Gallery, The Film-Makers' Cooperative, and Lightcone.