Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
This film is certified
- Contains strong language and one scene of sexual violence
Duffer
A bizarre study of obsession focusing on a teenage boy who is torn between the charms of a fleshly female prostitute and the sadism of an older man.
Drama 1971 75 mins
Director: Joseph Despins
Overview
Shot in South West London in 1971, Duffer is an intense and bizarre study of obsession that is by turns beautiful and disturbing. It tells the story of a teenage boy (Duffer) who is caught between the womanly charms of a kindly prostitute called Your Gracie and the sadistic attentions of an older man named Louis-Jack. And then Duffer gets pregnant ... Both whimsical and disturbing, with a quirky sense of the grotesque, Duffer is a film that defies easy comparison (perhaps Eraserhead comes close). The director and writer were two ex-pat Canadians in London, and the score is by Galt MacDermot, the Grammy award-winning composer of Hair. The trio would reunite to make their London-set musical, The Moon Over the Alley.
This title is also available on DVD / Blu-ray in the BFI’s Flipside collection.
- Director
- Joseph Despins and William Dumaresq
- Featuring
- William DumaresqKit GleaveErna May
- Genres
- Drama
- Certificate
- Contains strong language and one scene of sexual violence
- Released
- 1971
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
Accessibility
Related
Drama
The Seventh Seal
Fantasy 1957 96 mins Director: Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman’s best-known film is a brilliant allegorical drama starring Max von Sydow as a knight trying to elude his own death.
The Square Circle
Drama 1996 108 mins Director: Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar’s groundbreaking film follows the journey of young woman who reinvents herself as a man after she's kidnapped and attacked.
Rocco and His Brothers
Drama 1960 179 mins Director: Luchino Visconti
Italian maestro Luchino Visconti’s epic drama follows a mother and her five sons who move from a small town to Milan, changing their lives forever.
La Grande Bouffe
Comedy 1973 130 mins Director: Marco Ferreri
Marco Ferreri's provocative and controversial satire about four friends who retreat to a country mansion with the intention of eating themselves to death.
Wind from the East
Drama 1969 93 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin's radical film deconstructs both a factory strike and the Hollywood western - simultaneously.
Struggle in Italy
Drama 1969 60 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Godard's case study of an Italian girl's inner struggle to reconcile her revolutionary intent with her ingrained bourgeois tendencies.
London
Swandown
Documentary 2012 107 mins Director: Andrew Kötting
Filmmaker Andrew Kötting and writer Iain Sinclair embark on a quest from Hastings to East London by pedalo.
Seance on a Wet Afternoon
Crime 1964 111 mins Director: Bryan Forbes
Bryan Forbes’ stylish psychological thriller about a medium who plans to kidnap a child and help the police solve the crime to bolster her reputation as a clairvoyant.
Face
Crime 1997 101 mins Director: Antonia Bird
Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone are members of a gang of thieves that falls apart when a heist goes wrong, in Antonia Bird’s stylish and political crime thriller.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
Science Fiction 1961 100 mins Director: Val Guest
The BFI’s new HD remaster of the British sci-fi classic. A journalist discovers that the Earth has been knocked off its axis and is moving ever closer to the sun. Is the Earth doomed?
Quatermass and the Pit
Horror 1967 94 mins Director: Roy Ward Baker
One of Britain’s finest sci-fi films, based on Nigel Kneale’s masterful script, about the discovery of ancient alien craft beneath central London.
Nightbirds
Drama 1970 78 mins Director: Andy Milligan
Dark drama about the doomed relationship of two down-and-outers living in the squalid East End of London in the early 1970s.
Directed by Joseph Despins
The Moon over the Alley
Musical 1977 108 mins Director: Joseph Despins
The Moon Over the Alley is a bizarre and compelling musical exploring the problems of multicultural Notting Hill residents in the early 1970s.
New
Lek and the Dogs
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2017 92 mins Director: Andrew Kötting
Andrew Kötting returns with an emotionally affecting and politically resonant multi-genre adaptation of Hattie Naylor’s play.
The Seventh Seal
Fantasy 1957 96 mins Director: Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman’s best-known film is a brilliant allegorical drama starring Max von Sydow as a knight trying to elude his own death.
The Square Circle
Drama 1996 108 mins Director: Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar’s groundbreaking film follows the journey of young woman who reinvents herself as a man after she's kidnapped and attacked.
Rocco and His Brothers
Drama 1960 179 mins Director: Luchino Visconti
Italian maestro Luchino Visconti’s epic drama follows a mother and her five sons who move from a small town to Milan, changing their lives forever.
La Grande Bouffe
Comedy 1973 130 mins Director: Marco Ferreri
Marco Ferreri's provocative and controversial satire about four friends who retreat to a country mansion with the intention of eating themselves to death.
Wind from the East
Drama 1969 93 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin's radical film deconstructs both a factory strike and the Hollywood western - simultaneously.