Nighthawks was Britain’s first explicitly gay film made within the gay community. This quietly revolutionary film gives us one of cinema’s first complex, fully realised gay protagonists.
The screening of this rare film will be followed by a conversation between Director Ron Peck and artist Ian Giles.
Nighthawks is set in a post-Stonewall and pre-AIDS London. In the evenings Jim, an out geography teacher hits the bars, where the dance floor becomes a space of lusty liberation, dispiriting ritual and social connections. Peck made Nighthawks with a cast of mostly non-professional actors, advertising for roles in newspaper classifieds. Jim’s worlds collide when he’s confronted by his students. When asked if he is “bent” Jim gives the schoolboys a resounding lesson in tolerance that still reverberates today.
Nighthawks has been selected by Ian Giles as part of the Communal Curriculum for his Jerwood New Work Fund project ‘On Railton Road’ – Giles is developing a play about the Brixton gay squats in the 1970s. Communal Curriculum is a series of public events produced as part of the play’s devising process and includes: the Nighthawks screening, a queer tour of Brixton and other related discussions. His resulting collaborative play will be presented at Brixton Base on April 17th and 18th 2020. More details: onrailtonroad.com
Supported by Jerwood Arts and Arts Council England
Programme
Nighthawks, colour, 113 mins, 16mm transferred to DVD, 1978
Followed by a Q&A with Ron Peck and Ian Giles
