LGBT Center, 3907 Spruce Street

Existing
as an organic blend of documentary and narrative film elements, Thick Relations is a snapshot of an
urban, queer community.  Featuring a
motley crew of compelling queer anti-heroes, the film constructs and calls forth
queer accounts of time, space, and relationality which are unscripted by
conventional or institutional forms of social belonging. Thick Relations is a Chosen Family affair and an Anti-RomCom; it
defies narrative resolution and allows for relational ambiguity. The film
subverts romantic tropes and opts to trace the ways that chosen family
arrangements embrace a different logic of love, alliance, and identification.  It is an ambiguous cinematic space where
every day tasks, dinner conversations, and sexual themes all run parallel in an
open and unresolved fashion. Inside of this current, the film’s central
characters are permitted to express love in incalculable ways. Thick Relations is a celebration of a
queer counterpublic that embraces desire/pleasure as its primary, orienting
ethos. 

Born in Chicago and raised in Philadelphia, Jules Rosskam received his BA in
Painting and Writing from Bennington College in 2001 and a MFA in Film, Video,
New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008.  In 2005 Rosskam premiered his first feature
film transparent, which has screened
in over 50 film festivals and had its broadcast premiere on PBS.  As the former Executive Producer of the
legendary non-profit media arts organization Dyke TV, Rosskam produced award-winning
cable access television shows for the queer community. Currently a visiting
Assistant Professor of Video Production at Hampshire College, Rosskam is also a
fine artist whose paintings, installations, and performances have shown in
galleries and venues throughout the U.S.  Visit http://www.julesrosskam.com.