Cooking Up Democracy

A woman reflects on her romantic relationship with a young Moroccan years ago. Her daughter travels to Morocco, attempting to relive her mother's past.

20 years after Gendernauts, Monika Treut seeks out the pioneers of the transgender movement back then to find out how their lives and their activism have evolved, how they have grown into their identities and how their energy continues to have an impact today.

A docudrama about the eventful life of Domenica Niehoff, a high-class prostitute from Hamburg who later became a social worker: Domenica’s mother leaves Italy and her abusive husband, makes her way to Germany with her two children, but ends up in prison, and Domenica and her brother are placed in an orphanage, where they are raised by nuns. At 17, Domenica meets the older, equally violent brothel owner Joseph Rothenberg, who for ten years...

Bondage was made from, among other things, footage Monika Treut filmed in New York with women of the LSM(Lesbian Sex Mafia/ Lesbian Sado-Masochists). The statements of Carol form the core of the film. She speaks about her sexuality, her love of bondage, her desire for pain, which she shows in front of the camera. Her talking is interrupted by assembled impressions: intersections and subways pass through a chained female body

Together with her bisexual friend and manager Stefan, singer Miko is working on a great career that has so far failed to materialize.

Monika Treut explores the worlds and thoughts of several female to male transgendered individuals. As with Treuts first film, Jungfrauenmaschine, Gendernauts, enters a minority sector of San Fransisco culture. The characters in this film have a lot to complain about, and they do. They are people whose physical appearance (female) does not match their inner sexual identity (male). The subject is pinpointed in the film independant of sexual orientation. Leave your conservative hats at the door, this is going to need your special attention.

Pioneering trans writer Max Wolf Valerio talks about his life and experience of transition in this groundbreaking documentary short, one of the very first portraits of a trans man on film, directed and produced by noted filmmaker Monika Treut.

Alex is 16, a misfit, a drop-out, a failure. She uses drugs; she cuts herself. She has been sent by her despairing adoptive mother to a farm in northern Germany. At first, Alex hates this remote place and the demanding job of looking after the horses. But under the tutelage of Nina, a 30-something taking a break from city life and her partner, Christine, Alex gradually comes to form a bond with the animals in her charge. Then Kathy arrives at the farm to take a holiday, bringing her own, beautiful horse with her. Alex takes an instant dislike to this privileged newcomer. Slowly, though, the barriers between the two are broken down and Kathy finds herself smitten by the streetwise and energetic Alex. The pair starts horsing around, larking about on the mudflats, until one weekend, when they’re alone at the farm, things spiral out of control.

Despite its suggestive title, this multi-part Danish omnibus film is not a work of exploitation. Instead, it presents 20 different short films (back-to-back) on the general theme of Danish women, directed by filmmakers including Krzysztof Zanussi, Monika Treut, Gustav Hamos, David Blair, Vibeke Vogel, Dusan Makavejev, Morten Skallerud and Lars Norgaard. Some dramatic vignettes mix with other comedic ones, but all are offbeat and experimental. The picture includes one animated sequence (by Norgaard).

Wanda, a dominatrix who runs an S&M gallery on the Hamburg waterfront, must choose between her lesbian lover and an American trainee.

From feminist director and provocateur Monika Treut comes this eclectic collection of four short documentaries profiling unconventional women. One has Camille Paglia explaining her ways of thinking. One has Annie Sprinkle explaining her approach to performance art, which includes inviting audience members to view her cervix with a speculum. One interview investigates a professional woman's preoccupation with sadomasochism. The fourth documents the life adjustments of an F2M (female-to-male) sex change who looks like a dangerous biker, with slick black hair, a matching motorcycle jacket, and tattoos.

Vicky, an out-of-work actress, struggling waitress and lesbian has her whole life thrown into turmoil when her father comes from Germany to visit. The main problem is that Vicky has told him she is a successful actress and happily married. She enlists the help of a gay friend to play her husband. Using a large range of characters—gay, lesbian, straight, transsexuals—the film creates a funny and touching view of family dynamics and sexuality.

DIDN'T DO IT FOR LOVE is a documentary portrait of Eva Norvind, a.k.a. Mistress Ava Taurel, born Eva Johanne Chegodaieva Sakonskaya in Trondheim, Norway. The film follows Eva's many careers, from her time as a showgirl in Paris to becoming Mexico's Marilyn Monroe in the 1960s to establishing herself as New York's most famous dominatrix in the 1980s. Using clips from Norvind's Mexican films, stills from various periods, and interviews with friends, partners and family, Treut's documentary traces Eva's search for the wellspring of her obsessive and dark sexuality.

A German woman travels to San Francisco to find her mother, but winds up distracted by the sexually flamboyant culture of the city.

The world according to Annie Sprinkle, renowned porn star and performance artist.

A woman who is mourning the love of her life falls into a relationship with a mysterious stranger.