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Secret Museums

Top Films of 2023 • 1h 16m

Directed by Peter Woditsch • Documentary • 2008 • 77 minutes

Throughout the ages, erotic art has been created by some of the world's best-known artists, but it is rarely on public display. Whether it is held in private collections, or kept under lock and key in museums and libraries worldwide, erotic art and literature remains censored. But when graphic, even extreme sexual imagery is freely available on the Internet, why is erotic art considered so dangerous that it must be prohibited?

Filmed in England, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the U.S., SECRET MUSEUMS explores the locked rooms, warehouses, museum cellars, bank safes and private homes where erotica is hidden, from the British Museum and the National Library of France to Munich's National Graphics Collection and the Vatican, home of the world's largest collection of pornography. SECRET MUSEUMS features interviews with wealthy collectors, museum curators and guides, and experts in erotic art, who discuss the reasons for the cultural suppression and control of erotic art.

'A surprisingly sophisticated film.' -Vancouver International Film Festival

Tags
anthropology and archaeology, art, art and architecture, auctions, censorship, cultural and ethnic studies, cultural anthropology, doc, documentary, erotica, expository, galleries, gender and sexuality, gender studies, icarus films, l'enfer, museum studies, museums, ovid, pompei, private collections, secret museums, the secretum, vatican

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