Sylvia's Promise – Films by George and Mike Kuchar

In the early 1960s, the twins Mike and George Kuchar, born in the Bronx in 1942, became the favorites of the New York underground film scene. Sponsored by Jonas Mekas, pioneer of the U.S. independent film scene, the teenagers presented their 8 mm home movies alongside films of experimental film heavyweights such as Ken Jacobs or Michael Snow. Their "pictures", as they called them, distilled the essence from the Technicolor cinema dreams of B-movies, melodramas, sci-fi and horror films shot in 1940s and 50s Hollywood – something which was later termed "camp". They were "Readers Digest abridgements of a Hollywood life." (George Kuchar) The Kuchars created their own star system, searched for their props and costumes at flea markets and inspired contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and John Waters.