John Arthur Peetz

Adnan, a young art student, arrives in New York to spend the summer in an apartment. He interns at a gallery that exhibits the work of an older, unconventional artist he once crossed paths with. As moments from his past and present intertwine, a series of encounters, both artistic and erotic, open gaps in his everyday reality.

A historical documentary and filmic poem that interprets the story of José Francisco Pereira, an enslaved man who was tried by the Lisbon Inquisition for sorcery and sodomy. An adaptation of Pereira’s trial is interwoven with passages from Saint Peter Damian’s passionate 11th-century condemnation of sodomy as an unrepeatable sin in Letter 31 (also known as The Book of Gomorrah), and Walter Benjamin’s iconic elucidations on historicism and progress in Theses on the Philosophy of History. The film revisits the morally and legally charged figure of the sodomite as a violent historical construction and expression of ecclesiastical, institutional, and colonial patriarchy.