Tearoom - Movie - Festival QUEER

Tearoom

William E. Jones
Documentary : 56' / Cruising, Voyeurism, Archive

In the summer of 1962, the Mansfield, Ohio Police Department photographed men in a restroom under the main square of the city. The cameramen hid in a closet and watched the clandestine activities through a two-way mirror. The film they shot was used in court as evidence against the defendants, all of whom were found guilty of sodomy, which at that time carried a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in the state penitentiary.

Sections: QL - Retrospective
+ Info: https://www.davidkordanskygallery.com

/ Details

Year: 1962-2007

Country: USA

Language: no dialogues

Subtitles: no subtitles

/ Direction

William E. Jones

USA

For over three decades, William E. Jones (Canton, Ohio, USA, 1962) has been producing films, videos, photographs, and books that re-examine existing cultural materials. He has explored the decline of America’s industrial Midwest, the representation of gay men in sources as diverse as Eastern European pornography and police surveillance footage, the psychedelic visual potential of Cold War military footage, and poetic connections between the randomized nature of the Internet and ancient philosophy. Jones has been the subject of many solo exhibitions and retrospectives at internationally renowned institutions. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Filmography

Selected

2015 – Psychic Driving (Experimental Short)
2013 – Actual T.V. Picture (Experimental Short)
2012 – Shoot Don’t Shoot (Experimental Short)
1962-2007 – Tearoom (Experimental Feature)
2006 – Film Montages (for Peter Roehr) (Experimental Short)

2006 – V.O. (Experimental Feature)

2004 – Is It Really so Strange? (Documentary)
1998 – The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography (Short Documentary)

1997 – Finished (Experimental Documentary)
1991 – Massillon (Documentary)