Mike Kuchar (born August 31, 1942, in New York City) is an American underground filmmaker, actor, and artist. Kuchar is notable for his low-budget and camp films such as Sins of the Fleshapoids [1] and The Craven Sluck.
Mike Kuchar (born August 31, 1942, in New York City) is an American underground filmmaker, actor, and artist. Kuchar is notable for his low-budget and camp films such as Sins of the Fleshapoids [1] and The Craven Sluck.
Raised in The Bronx, he made his first films as a teenager in the 1950s with his twin brother George Kuchar and participated in New York's underground film scene in the 1960s and 1970s. He divided his time between New York City and his brother's San Francisco apartment until 2007, when he moved to San Francisco permanently; George died in 2011. [2]
During the 1980s and 1990s, Mike Kuchar created comics and illustrations for homoerotic publications including Meatmen , Gay Heart Throbs , First Hand, and Manscape, [3] and continued to draw commissions afterward.
It Came From Kuchar , a documentary film about George and Mike Kuchar by Jennifer Kroot, premiered at the South by Southwest film festival on 14 March 2009. [4]
In more recent years, Kuchar has focused on more intimate one person expressionistic films. At the Vienna International Film Festival in 2009, he unveiled two short films, Swan Song and Dumped. Swan Song features the pain of a young man tormented by his sensuality who is painted as an animal writhing in pain, and Dumped stars veteran stage actress Deirdre McGill in a portrait of a woman engaged in a deadly love triangle. Kuchar teaches in the film program at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Kuchar also worked as a cameraman for Rosa von Praunheim.
The Kuchar brothers collaborated on a book, Reflections from a Cinematic Cesspool (1997), a humorous memoir discussing four decades of filmmaking, with an introduction by director John Waters. [5]
Produced at the San Francisco Art Institute:
Produced at the Collective For Living Cinema's Dramatic Narrative Class:
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality, and violence. They were most popular in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, and in the United Kingdom in the 1970s.
George Kuchar was an American underground film director and video artist, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic.
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An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing.
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Daniel Walter Schmid was a Swiss theatre and film director.
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It Came from Kuchar is a 2009 documentary film about twin underground filmmakers George Kuchar and Mike Kuchar directed by Jennifer Kroot and produced by Tigerlily Films LLC. The film includes commentary by John Waters, Christopher Coppola, Wayne Wang, B. Ruby Rich, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin, Bill Griffith, and Buck Henry.
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Sins of the Fleshapoids is a 1965 underground film directed by Mike Kuchar. It is a low-budget, campy sci-fi movie about an android revolt a million years in the future after humans have become too lazy and selfish to take care of themselves.
Yale Union was a nonprofit contemporary art center in southeast Portland, Oregon, United States. Located in the Yale Union Laundry Building built in 1908, the center was founded in 2008. In 2020, the organization announced it would transfer the rights of its building to the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF). It dissolved the nonprofit after wrapping up its program in 2021 and completing the building and land transfer. The space is now the Center for Native Arts and Cultures.
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Hold Me While I'm Naked, is a 1966 American underground short 16 mm film directed by George Kuchar. It stars Kuchar, Donna Kerness, Stella Kuchar, and Andrea Lunin. The most popular and acclaimed of Kuchar's filmography of over 200 films – it was voted 52nd in Village Voice's Critics' Poll of the 100 Best Films of the 20th Century.
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Jennifer Kroot is an American filmmaker whose films include the documentaries It Came From Kuchar (2009) and To Be Takei (2014).
Joaquín La Habana is a queer singer, dancer, actor and drag artist.
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