Bust-Up

This unconventional comedy explores women’s sexuality through candid stories of sexual discoveries, fantasies and pleasures. Visually stunning, yet unnerving, the film is a visual montage of found industrial films and original footage of swirling skirts, monumental machinery, ocean life, and befuddled reaction shots. The phone rings and the girl-talk begins: secrets emerge and confessions build as the audience is taken on an adventure of sensual humor.

Beyond Voluntary Control conveys the experience of psychological and physical confinement. Through a surreal montage of haunting images from diverse sources, a sense of the obsessions, phobias, and diseases that constrict personal freedom is tellingly communicated. Dancer David Figueroa contributes his original and evocative movements to the mix. A soundtrack with poems by Emily Dickinson and Sharon Olds escorts the visual, and an interview with the filmmaker’s mother poignantly underscores the latter’s struggle with Parkinson’s disease.