The New Museum is pleased to be the first major New York institution to screen OPEN, a film by emerging Director Jake Yuzna (b. 1982, Minneapolis, MN). The first American film to receive the Teddy Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, OPEN presents the new forms of love and sex emerging at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Inspired by the life and work of Genesis and Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, OPEN follows a love triangle between a young hermaphrodite and a pandrogynous couple merging their bodies into one through plastic surgery. As they explore new frontiers of the human form, they encounter a young transman who grapples with an unexpected pregnancy as he forms a post-nuclear family unit. Starring real trans, intersexed, and queer actors, and featuring an original score by the group ADULT., OPEN emotionally showcases the expanding possibilities for humanity.

"Yuzna's film has the kind of poetic clarity that creates a beautifully observed, hard-nosed fable," remarked Richard Flood, Director of Special Projects and Curator at Large, New Museum. The November 19, premiere will take place at the New Museum Theater, and will begin with a 7 p.m. screening of the film OPEN, followed by a conversation between Director Jake Yuzna and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. Tickets: $10 Members, $12 General Public. Click on the photo to go to the ticketing website.

After its debut at 2010 Berlin Film Festival, OPEN has gone on to garner critical acclaim and has received several awards including: Best Performance, NewFest, 2010; Best Narrative Feature, Tel Aviv Film Festival, 2010; Four in Focus, OutFest, Los Angeles, 2010, and the Jury Award, QueerLisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, 2010, among other recognitions.

Jake Yuzna, Director
Son of a poet and nephew to cult horror director, Jake Yuzna (b. 1982, Minneapolis, MN) emerged from an arts education while training in the American adult video industry. Before reaching the age of 23 years old, Yuzna received fellowships in film from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Frameline Foundation, the Philthrofund Foundation, Creative Time, Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Jerome Foundation. Filmed exclusively in Yuzna's hometown of Minneapolis, MN, OPEN marks Yuzna's first feature length film.

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Consultant
Founder of the bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an instrumental figure in the foundation of Industrial Music. Ranging from performances with COUM Transmissions, to paintings, drawings, and sculpture, P-Orridge has influenced a generation of artists, with he/r personal archive recently acquired by the Tate Museum. Deeply influenced by artist Brion Gysin and his Cut-Up method, P-Orridge created and lived by the notion of pandrogeny, which advocated the merging of the sexes via the Cut-Up. Through a series of operations, P-Orridge and he/r late partner Lady Jaye became examples of a "third sex," a riff on Gysin's lifelong collaboration with William Burroughs that culminated in the collage work The Third Mind.