The Goethe-Institut New York, Anthology Film Archives, and Salzgeber Club are thrilled to present a dual retrospective devoted to the films of
Monika Treut and
Elfi Mikesch – two pioneers of German LGBTQ cinema – showcasing the films they have made both together and separately.
Treut and Mikesch first collaborated in 1985, co-directing
Seduction: The Cruel Woman (
Verführung – Die grausame Frau), a pioneering work of German LGBTQ cinema made by women. Mikesch, who was born and raised in Austria but relocated to Germany in the mid-1960s, had previously directed several short films and features, as well as acting as cinematographer on films by her friend and colleague
Rosa von Praunheim, and the Austrian artist and filmmaker
Friederike Pezold. Seduction would mark the beginning of a long and fruitful professional partnership between Treut and Mikesch, with the two co-founding the company Hyena Films, while Mikesch would go on to shoot almost all of Treut’s films over the next 20 years.
For 35 years now, Treut has devoted herself to depicting lesbian and gay lives on screen, exploring the mysteries and ambiguities of gender, and transgressing repressive sexual mores and ideas. In addition to
Seduction, she has made numerous fiercely independent and fearless feature films – both fictional and documentary – including
Virgin Machine (
Die Jungfrauenmaschine),
Female Misbehavior,
Gendernauts, and many others. In recent years, her field of interest has come to encompass the culture and people of Taiwan.
For her part, Mikesch – in addition to acting as cinematographer on dozens of films by Treut and von Praunheim, as well as the great
Werner Schroeter and others – has continued to direct extraordinary short and feature films of her own, which are sadly underappreciated in the US. We are pleased to showcase a new restoration of her first feature film,
I Often Think of Hawaii (
Ich denke oft an Hawaii); her documentary portrait of Schroeter,
Mondo Lux; and her most recent work,
Fever (
Fieber).
Seduction: The Cruel Woman
Virgin Machine
I Often Think of Hawaii
My Father Is Coming
Female Misbehavior
Didn't Do It For Love
Gendernauts
Mondo Lux: The Visual Worlds of Werner Schroeter
The Raw and The Cooked
Fever
Ghosted
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