Mark Christopher – filmmaker – 54: The Director’s Cut

Mark Christopher is back on FRED Film Radio for a follow up on 54: The Director’s Cut, chosen to be the Opening Ceremony’s film to celebrate the 30th edition and birthday of the TGLFF – Torino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

It was only a natural step to have the Italian Premiere of the new, restored and desired version of 54 (after 17 years waiting) at the TGLFF where Mark Christopher showed a rough cut of this version 7 years ago and people actually caused a RIOT to get in and watch it. The news about this RIVOLTA ( the Italian word for Riot) reached Miramax and contributed to the releasing of this great film narrating the story of the young people working at the Studio 54 at the time.

54: The Director’s Cut will be distributed on ITunes on June 2nd

54: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT: 54, again. Studio 54, directed by Mark Christopher in 1998, was about the hedonistic frenzy of the famous New York City discotheque during the late ’70s, a wild experience of sexual freedom and excess that marked an era and made disco music a global phenomenon.

As the director says, “A time not-so-long-ago, when being young or homosexual meant freedom, excitement and, most of all, sex was sexy”. In the cast there are stars like Ryan Phillippe, playing the good-looking leading character, the stunning actresses Salma Hayek and Neve Campbell, and ex Austin Powers Mike Myers. But at the time the producers got out the scissors and re-edited the movie, cutting out many hard scenes and sugarcoating the bisexuality of the main character, bartender Shane.

After finding the scenes that were cut, 36 minutes of footage, Christopher worked on the movie again, until it finally reflected his original intentions. The result is harsher, more risqué and… more gay. Previewed at the Berlin Film Festival.