In just a week, we’re presenting the only erotic “masterpiece and the best French gay porn ever made” from painter Francis Savel (directing under the pseudonym Dietrich de Velsa), EQUATION TO AN UNKNOWN.
EQUATION would have remained an obscure and largely forgotten film, were it not for director Yann Gonzalez (Knife + Heart) having new 16mm prints of the film struck from negative found in the lab. We are fortunate to be able to present a new restoration of this film, that Yann Gonzalez has named as his favorite Gay porn.
The film follows the erotic imaginings of a motorcycle riding loner. After a first viewing, I was struck by the quiet melancholy of this atmospheric dreamscape of a film, where we are invited to gaze upon the bodies of youthful football players and gas station attendants as they are dreamed by the protagonist. The result is a series of sexual vignettes that dissolve into our protagonist’s sense of loneliness and longing.
And you can see it on Friday, June 22 at 9pm at the Grand Illusion Cinema.
Equation to an Unknown
Dir. Dietrich de Velsa
France, 1980
99 minutes
New HD Restoration!
A handsome young stud rides his motorcycle through myriad sexual fantasies, from a soccer game’s locker room to a dreamy and unsettling orgy where the porn reaches its melancholic peak. This undiscovered erotic film is a labyrinth of all-male fantasies whose outstanding beauties always end up fading away while leaving their sensual protagonist dealing with his own loneliness. Directed with absolute grace by the mysterious Dietrich de Velsa (aka Francis Savel / Frantz Salieri): this former painter was also the owner and artistic director of one of the first transvestites’ cabaret of Paris, La Grande Eugène. Years later, he collaborated with Joseph Losey on Mr. Klein and Don Giovanni. EQUATION TO AN UNKNOWN is his only film and stands without a doubt as a masterpiece. It’s also director Yann Gonzalez’s (KNIFE+HEART) favorite gay porn film!
*No one under 18 admitted
