Directing his first feature in 5 years, Araki takes all his familiar themes – fascination of the innocence of youth, an obsession with the purity of love, the fluidity of sexuality, a delight in gross-out humor, alternative rock music soundtracks, pop culture candy color palettes, and kidnap-by-aliens subplots – and fuses them into something deeply and triumphantly cathartic. Mysterious Skin is not only a summation of Araki’s previous work, but an explosion of his artistry into an entirely new realm. Araki's kinetic cinematic imagination has long made for a compelling oeuvre. A graduate of the University of Southern California’s film program, he shot his first low-budget non-sync b&w 16mm indie feature, Three Bewildered People in the Night, an early film festival favorite in 1987.

He grabbed the attention of the industry in 1989 when his droll, deadpan, devastatingly funny follow-up, The Long Weekend (O’Despair), won the Best Independent Film award from the Los Angel es Film Critics Circle.

His third film, The Living End, a guys-n-guns road movie about two HIV-positive men on a bizarre and violent trip through the desert, brought Araki wider fame. One of the films that ushered in what became known as the Queer New Wave of 1991 alongside films such as Paris is Burning, My Own Private Idaho, Longtime Companion, Poison and Swoon, The Living End was a seminal film that inspired an entire generation of GLBT filmmakers.

Araki’s other films include the touching queer youth ensemble film Totally F***ed Up (1993), the nihilistic MTV-busting teen movies The Doom Generation (1995) starring Rose McGowan, Jonathan Schaech and James Duvall, and Nowhere (1997), not inappropriately described as “90210 on acid”, and the romantic comedy Splendor (1999).

GLFF salutes Gregg Araki as the recipient of our 2005 Career Achievement Award. With the release of Mysterious Skin, he joins a rarified group of openly gay film artists that includes Pedro Almodovar, Gus van Sant Jr., John Waters, Todd Haynes, and Lisa Cholodenko whose work is eagerly awaited not just by GLBT but international art house audiences all over the world. Join us as MGLFF salutes Araki with a short video retrospective of his films, before the Florida premiere of Mysterious Skin on Monday, April 25 th at 7:30 pm at the Regal Cinemas South Beach. For tickets and more info, CLICK HERE