Past Film/Video | Classics

Totally F***ed Up

(Gregg Araki, 1993)

New Restoration

A man sits against the corner of a wall with his knees bent by his chest, wearing only suspenders.

This queer Gen X ode to French New Wave captures highs and lows in the lives of six LA teens. 

Made on a shoestring budget, the first installment in Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy is filled with raw DIY energy, reckless abandon, and 1990s teenage nihilism. With an episodic format inspired by Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin Féminin (1966), the film follows six queer, alienated teenagers (played by mainly non-professional actors) who come together to form a found family. They navigate relationships, the AIDS crisis, and homophobia—all while discovering weed, sex, and Nine Inch Nails. With period-defining music from Ministry, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, This Mortal Coil, and more. (78 mins., 4K DCP)

See the entire Teen Apocalypse Trilogy lineup.

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Totally F***ed Up, courtesy of Strand Releasing.

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"A kind of cross between avant-garde experimental cinema and a queer John Hughes flick."
Gregg Araki

More about the Artist

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Gregg Araki is a pioneering Japanese American filmmaker who helped define the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s. From his groundbreaking early works The Living End (1992) and the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy to more recent films such as Mysterious Skin (2004) and the Starz series Now Apocalypse (2019), Araki remains one of the most rebellious, outrageous, and playfully transgressive independent American filmmakers working today.

Special thanks to Strand Releasing and Marcus Hu for these screenings.

FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
National Endowment for the Arts 
Ohio Humanities 

ADDITIONAL SUPPORTED PROVIDED BY
Rohauer Collection Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Ohio Department of Development
Greater Columbus Arts Council
The Wexner Family
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Ohio Arts Council
CampusParc
Ohio State’s Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme
The Columbus Foundation
Nationwide Foundation
Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Mike and Paige Crane
Axium Packaging
Nancy Kramer
Ohio State Energy Partners
Ohio History Fund/Ohio History Connection
Larry and Donna James
Bruce and Joy Soll
Jones Day
Alex and Renée Shumate

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Totally F***ed Up