Good Boys Film Club Presents: 'In My Skin' (2002)
Hyde Park Book Club (SNUG), Leeds, LS6 1BL
Sunday 25th January 2026
Good Boys Film Club is proud to present a screening of Marina de Van's In My Skin (2002).
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Set amid Paris of the 2000s, In My Skin details the commonplace life of Esther (performed with striking autobiographical quality by director Marina de Van) as she contends with a monotonous job and a placid relationship. At a house party, Esther unknowingly injures herself on discarded industrial equipment, leaving a viscous wound. Obsessed with the lack of pain she experiences and fascinated by the limits of her corporeality, she delves further and further into acts of exploratory self-mutilation.
In My Skin is a ferociously violent film, wholly unashamed of committing the grotesque to screen. Esther’s morbid preoccupation gestures towards a symbolic notion of self-harm as liberation: capable of unshackling the pressing weight of identity, definition, and personhood. Revolutionary in possibility, her mutilation becomes the promise of freedom. Primarily, it is freedom from the confines of flesh, alongside the degradation enacted upon feminine bodies and those in servitude of capital. Esther’s body is one made intentionally fluid, drawn and defined by the very hand it serves to restrict. Needless to say, de Van does not idolise self-harm, instead employing it as simulacrum. Pasted across the porous skin of film, the act grasps fundamentally at what it is to possess a body and, tacitly, where emancipation from such constraints lies - the open wound both revolting and beautiful.
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Before the screening, there will be an introduction critiquing the possibility of liberation in self-harm, the action of self-harm and its capacity to dismantle structure, and the body as a transient, ephemeral force. Please join me after the film to discuss its content and themes.
Ticket Information
- Tickets are £5, £3 (unwaged), and NOTAFLOF.
- Please contact me if you cannot afford a ticket and I will be happy to offer you a complimentary one.
Access Information
- The Snug at Hyde Park Book Club is an accessible space. If you require ramp access to the Snug, please contact either myself or the venue.
- There is an accessible toilet just off of the main bar area.
- The Snug is separate from the rest of the venue if you need space to take a break from the content of the film.
Timings
DOORS: 17:30
FILM: 18:00
BREAK: 19:40
POST-SCREENING DISCUSSION: 20:00
FINISH: 21:00
Content warnings: graphic and intense depictions of self-harm, nudity, sexual assault, knives and use of knives, body dysphoria.
THIS IS AN 18+ EVENT.
~
Set amid Paris of the 2000s, In My Skin details the commonplace life of Esther (performed with striking autobiographical quality by director Marina de Van) as she contends with a monotonous job and a placid relationship. At a house party, Esther unknowingly injures herself on discarded industrial equipment, leaving a viscous wound. Obsessed with the lack of pain she experiences and fascinated by the limits of her corporeality, she delves further and further into acts of exploratory self-mutilation.
In My Skin is a ferociously violent film, wholly unashamed of committing the grotesque to screen. Esther’s morbid preoccupation gestures towards a symbolic notion of self-harm as liberation: capable of unshackling the pressing weight of identity, definition, and personhood. Revolutionary in possibility, her mutilation becomes the promise of freedom. Primarily, it is freedom from the confines of flesh, alongside the degradation enacted upon feminine bodies and those in servitude of capital. Esther’s body is one made intentionally fluid, drawn and defined by the very hand it serves to restrict. Needless to say, de Van does not idolise self-harm, instead employing it as simulacrum. Pasted across the porous skin of film, the act grasps fundamentally at what it is to possess a body and, tacitly, where emancipation from such constraints lies - the open wound both revolting and beautiful.
~
Before the screening, there will be an introduction critiquing the possibility of liberation in self-harm, the action of self-harm and its capacity to dismantle structure, and the body as a transient, ephemeral force. Please join me after the film to discuss its content and themes.
Ticket Information
- Tickets are £5, £3 (unwaged), and NOTAFLOF.
- Please contact me if you cannot afford a ticket and I will be happy to offer you a complimentary one.
Access Information
- The Snug at Hyde Park Book Club is an accessible space. If you require ramp access to the Snug, please contact either myself or the venue.
- There is an accessible toilet just off of the main bar area.
- The Snug is separate from the rest of the venue if you need space to take a break from the content of the film.
Timings
DOORS: 17:30
FILM: 18:00
BREAK: 19:40
POST-SCREENING DISCUSSION: 20:00
FINISH: 21:00
Content warnings: graphic and intense depictions of self-harm, nudity, sexual assault, knives and use of knives, body dysphoria.
THIS IS AN 18+ EVENT.
