Presented in partnership with Iowa City Pride!

Masks are required in public spaces at FilmScene in following CDC guidance for current risk levels.

PLEASE NOTE: this event will be full capacity with enhanced wellness protocols in place requiring either a 72-hour (or less) negative COVID-19 test or documentation of a vaccine card in lieu of a negative COVID-19 test for each individual 5 or older attending.

“A film that’s thoughtful and exuberant, achingly sad and wildly funny.”—Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic

“A rather sweet, wistful little movie that just happens to have a lot of explicit sex in it.”—Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

“John Cameron Mitchell’s ode to the joy and sweet release of sex also manages to be a sincere, modest political venture that finds humor where you might least expect it.”—Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

John Cameron Mitchell’s follow up to Hedwig and the Angry Inch explores the lives of several emotionally challenged characters as they navigate the comic and tragic intersections between love and sex in and around a modern-day underground salon. A sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, a dominatrix who is unable to connect, a gay couple who are deciding whether to open up their relationship, and the people who weave in and out of their lives, all converge on a weekly gathering called Shortbus: a mad nexus of art, music, politics, and polysexual carnality. Set in a post-9/11, Bush-exhausted New York City, Shortbus tells its story with sexual frankness, suggesting new ways to reconcile questions of the mind, pleasures of the flesh, and imperatives of the heart.

Content Consideration: This film contains explicit unsimulated sex scenes