THE PERPETRATORS
Dir: Richard Squires
14 mins 30 secs, 2K DCP, Dolby 5.1
2022
Ghost Boy: Art Erikson
Chuck: Anthony Powell
Bobby: Eric Geynes
Animation: Elroy Simmons
Cinematography: Alex Grigoras, Richard Squires
Composer: Oliver Davis
Sound Design & Mix: Chu-Li Shewring
Consultant Editor: Lucy Harris
“I am a diagnosis… a medico-legal construct… of capitalist design”
Suburban London, the 1980s. A stranger in the family becomes a ghost child and awakens the monsters and desires of a queer childhood. Commenced during lockdown and shot in the neighbourhoods the filmmaker grew up in, THE PERPETRATORS collages moody analogue film, original animation and archival materials in a dreamy autofiction of queer darkness that ponders the correlations between Stranger Danger, the construction of homosexual identity and the institution of the family.
At a time when political leaders are once again escalating narratives of queer people being a threat to children, Squires’ timely reflection on his own 1980s childhood exposes the history of pathological representations of menacing queers.
THE PERPETRATORS had its premiere screening competing in the Short Film category at Queer Lisboa 26.
Distribution Light Cone
Dangerous, Transgressive, Exciting: An Interview with Richard Squires Miruna Tiberiu, GAY45
Anatomy of a Panic: Richard Squires on the history of homophobia and The Perpetrators Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film