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54: The Director's Cut

Runtime:
106 min.
Year of Production:
2015
Country:
USA
Director:
Cast:
Ryan Phillippe
Salma Hayek
Neve Campbell
Mike Meyers
Sela Ward
Heather Matarazzo
Production Company:
Film Colony
Berlinale Section:
Panorama

‘We’ve revolutionised going out‘, pronounces club owner Steve Rubell. At the legendary Studio 54, the mother of all nightclubs since the invention of disco, clubbing was much more than just socialising to music. In 1998, director Mark Christopher created a cinematic monument to this ostentatious mixture of Art Deco and plush, frivolous 1970s hedonism and drug-induced 24-hour party people. At the producers’ behest his film about this up-market disco in New York was changed considerably prior to its theatrical release and an extra 25 minutes of new material was added – including an ending that differed from the one in the original screenplay. Now, seventeen years after the premiere of the producers’ version, the Panorama is presenting for the first time the painstakingly reconstructed original version telling the story of young, curly-haired blond Jersey boy Shane O’Shea
who loses himself in the bewitchingly glamorous world of sex, drugs and disco and who only just manages to jump ship before the club is closed down by the police. This reintegrated version is weightier, darker, more drug-addled and above all queerer than the version that received the nod at the time.

BIOGRAFIE Mark Christopher

Born on a farm near Fort Dodge, Iowa on 9.7.1961. Studied at the University of Iowa, in Lisbon and in Paris. Made his debut as a director with the short, THE DEAD BOY'S CLUB, which won several awards. Graduates in film studies at Columbia University in 1995. Lives in New York. 

FILMOGRAFIE Mark Christopher (selection)

2015 54: The Director's Cut  2012 Real Life: The Musical  2007 Heartland   2005 Pizza  1998 54  1995 Alkali, Iowa  1993 The Dead Boys' Club  1990 The Language of Boys  1984 A Gourmet's Delight  

Mark Christopher@ IMDb
Trailer

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