Perfumed Nightmare

In cooperation with the Academy of the Arts of the World

Witty and inventive, PERFUMED NIGHTMARE is a highly original 8 mm production about the ambivalent love for the “West” in the Philippines of the late 1970s. Filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik is credited as the founder of independent Filipino cinema. In Perfumed Nightmare he plays the main role as a young man from a small village near Manila who listens to American radio and dreams of flying to outer space. An unexpected encounter takes him to a European metropolis, where he meets the promises of space-age progress face-to-face. Tahimik’s fable presents a sharp critique of neocolonialism while mixing genres and confounding expectations. 

The screening is introduced by media theorist Nanna Heidenreich and Ekaterina Degot.