dir. Monika Treut
1992 // 1 hr 20 mins // Digital Projection
Monika Treut presents four short documentaries about individuals who live and act outside of society’s expectations of womanhood. In Dr. Paglia (1992), Sexual Personae writer and academic Camille Paglia holds court with author Bruce Henderson. Then, in Annie (1989), “post-porn modernist” Annie Sprinkle gives a PCA (Public Cervix Announcement). Bondage (1983) is a look at lesbian sadomasochism with Carol from New York’s Lesbian Sex Mafia. Finally, in the groundbreaking Max (1992), trans poet Max Wolf Valerio discusses his life and transition. What emerges from these four very different portraits is a compelling snapshot of those at the forefront of blurring and expanding the definition of sex and gender at the close of the 20th century.
“Female Misbehavior is a totally accurate picture of my everyday life as a social and sexual alien.” - Camille Paglia
FEMALE MISBEHAVIOR: THE FILMS OF MONIKA TREUT
Ever since the release of her debut feature Seduction: The Cruel Woman (made in collaboration with filmmaker and longtime cinematographer Elfi Mikesch) in 1985, Hamburg-based filmmaker Monika Treut has devoted herself to depicting and documenting queer lives on screen, exploring the mysteries and ambiguities of gender, and transgressing repressive sexual mores and ideas. Fiercely controversial in her native Germany—where Die Zeit once proclaimed that “films like Monika Treut’s are destroying cinema”—Treut found much more acceptance for her work in the burgeoning queer film festival and independent film scenes in America, leading to several decadeslong collaborations with queer icons like trans poet Max Wolf Valerio and “post-porn modernist” Annie Sprinkle.
FEMALE MISBEHAVIOR brings the core of the first half of Treut’s career together in the form of recent restorations by the Hamburg Kinemathek. Encompassing both narratives (Virgin Machine, My Father is Coming) and documentaries (Didn’t Do It for Love, Gendernauts), these seven films are fearless explorations of sex and gender that trace the more taboo and less-documented arcs of queer history of the late 20th century.