"Thirty years ago, queer filmmaker Gregg Araki unveiled his fourth feature, Totally F***ed Up, at the Sundance Film Festival.

Rebellious, independent, and fearlessly queer, Araki’s radical spin on the coming-of-age genre would later be recognized as the first of his “Teenage Apocalypse” trilogy, which also included the dark road-trip romance The Doom Generation (’95) and sci-fi-twinged black comedy Nowhere (’97).

Nearly three decades on, one might expect these films to feel tame in retrospect, that maybe they—like many thirty-somethings—have lost some of their edge.

But that’s the thing about Araki: No matter how much the world changes (or does’t), his oeuvre is always on the bleeding edge—sexy, funny, shocking, punk, and unabashedly queer.

Timelessly transgressive, Araki is, without a doubt, one of the most important directors to come out of the ’90s, whose influential work will surely continue to inspire the independent filmmaking landscape for another 30 years, at least!"

- Queer Punk Cinema for Queerty, May 31 2023