Based on a conversation recorded in 1974, Ira Sach’s (Passages, 2023; Love is Strange, 2014) film follows celebrated photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) – one of the most important figures in downtown New York’s legendary cultural scene of the 1970s and 1980s – as he sits with writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall), in her West Village apartment, recounting the details of the previous day.

As the photographer vividly describes his interactions with leading cultural figures of the time, including Allen Ginsberg and Susan Sontag, as well as the challenges of living on limited financial resources in 1970s New York, Peter Hujar’s Day transforms unexpectedly into a Bloomsday-like meditation on both an artist’s life and time itself. Finding poetry in the mundane, Hujar’s genial anecdotes reveal the hidden intensity of seemingly ordinary days.

There will be Open Captioned screenings at 14.10 on Sunday 4th, and 18.40 on Monday 5th.

Notes by David O’Mahony