Peter Hujar's Day [2025]

 In 1974, writer Linda Rosenkrantz – who loved harnessing casual conversations and gossips – invited celebrated photographer and her friend Peter Hujar – who was still operating in the margins at that time, even if he was already a part of New York’s underground cultural circle, and died at the young age of 53 a decade later due to AIDS related complications – to her Upper East Side apartment to share how his previous day had been. The freeform “interview” that was recorded on tape as part of an intended larger project was unfortunately lost, but the manuscript resurfaced nearly half-a-century later in 2021, and which filmmaker Ira Sachs discovered at a Parisian LGBTQ+ bookstore. Peter Hujar’s Day is a delectable adaptation of that interaction – at once a meticulous, word-for-word transliteration of the text and a self-reflexive interpretation through such playful gestures as changing attires, the day transitioning into night in sync with Hujar’s recap, jump cuts, and the film’s crew bleeding into the frame on occasions. This warm, droll and captivating work provided a fascinating time capsule of 1970s NYC while also revealing, through gentle touches, the deep friendship that Rosenkrantz (tenderly portrayed by Rebecca Hall) had with Hujar (played with terrific panache by Ben Whishaw). Over the course of this intimate pas de deux, an exceptionally chatty Hujar recounts activities both consequential (Allen Ginsberg’s photoshoot, receiving tips for winning over William Burroughs, phone call from Susan Sontag, the challenges of getting paid, etc.) and banal (napping, eating Chow Mein, etc.), and their rambling exchanges – mostly indoors but at times on the balcony with the NYC skyline as backdrop – were captured in rich, grainy and exquisitely zeitgeisty 16-mm photography and art décor.

Director: Ira Sachs

Genre: Drama/Docudrama/Biopic

Language: English

Country: US