Peter Hujar's Day

Summary

In 1974, writer Linda Rosenkrantz and photographer Peter Hujar tape-recorded a conversation in her New York apartment. The topic of the afternoon was 24 hours in the life of the famously uncompromising Hujar who was regarded as one of the most important characters in downtown New York’s cultural scene of the 1970s and 1980s. In his new film, which is set entirely in Linda’s Manhattan apartment, Ira Sachs freely and imaginatively recreates that long-ago afternoon and the discursive exchange between two singular individuals. The photographer vividly describes his interactions with leading cultural figures of the day, including Allen Ginsberg and Susan Sontag, as well as the challenges of living on limited financial resources in 1970s New York. "Peter Hujar’s Day" is a Bloomsday-esque rumination on both an artist’s life and time itself.

Source: 75. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)