HIDDEN MASTER: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes

International premiere of HIDDEN MASTER: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes with Ventanas Abiertas as a pre film.

George Platt Lynes began his career photographing celebrities, and it’s those portraits along with his extravagant fashion work that he’s best remembered for today. However, George’s heart, his passion, and his greatest talent lay elsewhere, in his work with the male nude. This work, sensuous and radically explicit for its time, has only recently begun being fully discovered and appreciated for the revolution that it represents — a man capturing his fantasies as a gift, a window to a future his camera saw coming before anyone else.
From visionary art director Sam Shahid, HIDDEN MASTER features a stunning collection of photography from the 1930s-50s, uncovering the life of Lynes less known: his gifted eye for the male form, his long-term friendships with Gertrude Stein and Alfred Kinsey, and his lasting influence as one of the first openly gay American artists.

Sam Shahid has been helping brands like Calvin Klein, the Banana Republic and Versace create their iconic advertising campaigns since the early ‘80s. He also helped design fine art books for an endless list of artists and celebrities. Having spent a lifetime in the fashion and photography industry, he recognized George Platt Lynes’ influence on artists and photographers that came after him, while Lynes’ own works remained unrecognized by the greater art community.

With HIDDEN MASTER, Shahid wanted to place these legendary works in their proper context and generate further awareness of Lynes’ works. As an artist, Lynes was never able to share what he considered to be his very best works, all due to social, moral, legal and artistic restrictions imposed upon him by the era in which he lived and created. The dual themes of the film — reintroducing Lynes’ artistic works to new generations of audiences as well as continuing defending the rights of artists from all communities — are still relevant today.

Rosa Oomen, QFFU

Pre film: Ventanas Abiertas – Jos Mauro Witteveen Villagómez (Nederland, 26 minuten)

Jos Mauro Witteveen Villagómez is an Ecuadorian-Dutch filmmaker and storyteller. Ventanas Abiertas was his graduation film for his bachelor Audiovisual Media at the University of Arts in Utrecht.

Daniel is a Cuban immigrant who has moved to Rotterdam. To him, the city is unpleasant and unfamiliar, his loneliness further aggravated by his job in a warehouse. Due to a lack of contact and a social life, he gets satisfaction out of spying on people and taking their picture, also in their own homes. His obsession with spying on his colleague Olivier triggers a transformation. Social-realist drama about identity loss and displacement when integrating into a new city and culture.