Film Obsessive
Altered Innocence announces the home video release of Uranian Dreams: Two Homosexual Films by Eloy de la Iglesia, a pioneering gay and socialist Spanish filmmaker. Adeptly combining genre and social critique, Eloy de la Iglesia draws fascinating parallels between the political and sexual underground of his time. Releasing on Blu-ray and DVD on August 29th, Uranian Dreams is now available for pre-order at VinegarSyndrome.com.
Older male lust for tender young flesh lovingly pervades these two early films by the Spanish director Eloy de la Iglesia who specialized in many genres of films including the legendary Quinqui films, but is least credited with directing the first two openly homosexual films in Spain: Hidden Pleasures & Confessions of a Congressman.
A highly controversial film upon its release in Spain as the first feature narrative with homosexuality openly discussed, Hidden Pleasures follows Eduardo, a wealthy banker who has a pastime for hiring young street hustlers to keep his bed warm, yet ignores requests from a friend to join the social gay movements. One day while cruising around town he spots Miguel, an extremely handsome teen who has a penchant for women and motorcycles. Eduardo offers Miguel a job and eventually gets closer and closer with him. Eduardo’s building lust and the jealousy of others in their lives creates havoc for all.
Fighting for liberty, love, and your secret teenage lover are the themes of Confessions of a Congressman and our protagonist Roberto Orbea is a leader and follower of the ideals of his radical leftist opposition party, but he’s hiding a secret from the party and his wife Carmen: he can’t resist the cheap beautiful street teenagers that bad-boy Nes throws his way for various pleasures. Eventually the fascists find out about his proclivities and hire the blonde and angelic-looking Juanito to infiltrate Roberto’s life. But after a while Juanito starts to find his place with Roberto, with politics, and even with Carmen. With the elections fast approaching all three members of this strange throuple will have to decide how much they’re willing to lose to avoid revealing the truth.
These films have been unavailable to view in the United States for nearly four decades. Confessions of a Congressman was last released theatrically in LA in 1984 and NYC in 1985 at the Waverly. Hidden Pleasures was last released theatrically in the United States in 1986. Connected through various themes, these films are among Spain’s first openly gay films from a period of history known as la Transición, as Spain shifted from Francoist dictatorship to democracy. The home video release will include new video essays providing additional context on the queer themes of the films.
Confessions of a Congressman (El diputado) / 1978 / 107 minutes
- Director: Eloy de la Iglesia
- Writers: Eloy de la Iglesia, Gonzalo Goicoechea
- Producer: J.A. Pérez Giner
- Cinematographer: Antonio Cuevas
- Editor: Julio Peña
- Cast: José Sacristán, María Luisa San José, José Luis Alonso, Enrique Vivó, Agustín González
Hidden Pleasures (Los placeres ocultos) / 1977 / 94 minutes
- Director: Eloy de la Iglesia
- Writers: Rafael Sánchez Campoy, Eloy de la Iglesia
- Producer: Óscar Guarido
- Cinematographer: Carlos Suárez
- Editor: José Luis Matesanz
- Cast: Simón Andreu, Tony Fuentes, Beatriz Rossat, Germán Cobos, Antonio Corencia
Blu-ray Specifications
- Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 & 1.85:1 / Audio: 1.0 DTS-HD Master Audio / Language: Spanish / Subtitles: English / Number of Discs: 1 / Region: All
DVD Specifications
- Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 & 1.85:1 / Audio: 2.0 Dolby Digital / Language: Spanish / Subtitles: English / Number of Discs: 2 / Region: 0
Blu-ray + DVD Bonus Features
- “Smiling at the Door: Eloy de la Iglesia’s Hidden Pleasures” – A Video Essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- “Sex Post-Franco: The Queer Sensibility of Eloy de la Iglesia” – A Video Essay by Lee Gambin
- Original Spanish Trailer for “El Diputado”
- Other Trailers
Founded in 2015, Altered Innocence is dedicated to releasing LGBTQ & Coming-of-Age films with an artistic edge. Recent theatrical releases include Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible & Irreversible: Straight Cut and Joaquín del Paso’s The Hole in the Fence (El hoyo en la cerca). Recent home video releases include Patrice Chéreau’s The Wounded Man, André Téchiné’s Wild Reeds, Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s Beautiful Beings, and Ferit Karahan’s Brother’s Keeper. Upcoming theatrical releases include David Depesseville’s Astrakan from Locarno and New Directors/New Films. For more information, visit alteredinnocence.net.
