Derek Jarman (1942–1994), English filmmaker, painter, and diarist, made his directorial debut with Sebastiane (1976), a Latin-language film reviewed by Jack Fritscher in Drummer 22 (May 1978). Jarman went on to direct Caravaggio (1986), The Last of England (1987), and Edward II (1991), and earlier designed sets for Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) and Savage Messiah (1972). In 1991, London’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence canonized him as “Saint Derek of Dungeness” at his garden in Kent; he died of AIDS-related illness in 1994, shortly before the posthumous premiere of his final film, Glitterbug, at the International Gay Film Festival in Turin.

Jack Fritscher Reviews “Sebastiane” a Film by Derek Jarman