Liquid Sky (1982)

Aliens land on the roof in a ship the size of a dinner plate - searching for heroin. They discover something better: the endorphin released by the human brain during orgasm. Everyone who has sex with Margaret dies. Margaret begins to find this useful.

LIQUID SKY (1982) - the title is New York slang for heroin - was written, produced, and directed by Slava Tsukerman, a Soviet-born Jewish filmmaker who had emigrated to New York in 1976 and spent six years absorbing the city before making this film about it.

He wrote it with his wife Nina Kerova and Anne Carlisle, who plays two roles: Margaret, a bisexual model and heroin user, and Jimmy, her sneering androgynous male nemesis.

Production designer Marina Levikova made the wardrobe budget of $500 work through resourcefulness that has since become the stuff of filmmaking legend.

The score was composed using the Fairlight CMI digital synthesiser. The cinematographer Yuri Neyman served simultaneously as special effects director, creating alien POV sequences using video thermal imagery.

Liquid Sky spent twenty-eight weeks on Variety's top-grossing film chart and was the most successful independent film of 1983.

Tsukerman died in Manhattan on February 28, 2026, at the age of 86.