“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, as the old idiom goes. In a year spotted with nostalgia for subversion, queer homages to exploitation cinema, and a potential renaissance for gross-out comedy, this Trinity of Trash is among suitably depraved company.

In this mini season, we cast our attention back across the decades to reevaluate a few of independent cinema’s hidden gems, exhumed through the context of John Waters’ Female Trouble – celebrating its fiftieth anniversary and returning to the big screen as part of Cinema Rediscovered 2024.

Completing the trinity, we welcome two delightfully dark comedies in the form of Paul Bartel’s Eating Raoul and the mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous, starring Kirsten Dunst.

Often crude, hedonistic and skewering of the cultural zeitgeist, these three films challenge our perceptions of good and bad taste; what is acceptable and what is not; and how “cult” cinema has inadvertently become the vital lifeblood of the industry.

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