Monika Treut

From the starting point of her admiration for the pioneering Ukrainian filmmaker Kira Muratova (1934-2018), the director poses a question: is cinema made by women really tougher, more violent? Seeking answers, she talks to great contemporary filmmakers like Catherine Breillat, Virginie Despentes, Alice Diop, Céline Sciamma, Ana Lily Amirpour, and Monika Treut, among others. It becomes obvious that the cinema screen is a space for the projection of real social problems and power relations.

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 documentary about the International Queer Film Festival Hamburg that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2014. The filmmakers have filmed, interviewed, gleaned the archives, watched hours of footage and edited reams of material into a small masterpiece. With its gorgeous shots and sublime soundtrack, the documentary entertainingly brings across both the unique atmosphere and 25-year history, and above all, illuminates the complex mesh that both forms and carries the festival. On another note, the film tries to detect the ways a queer film festival like this has functioned as a platform for unheard voices - and continues to do so in the present. For some people, its sole existence has been a life changing momentum.

A queer anthology that explores sexuality, intimacy, and identity across age groups. Conceived as a collaborative project, the film brings together filmmakers from different generations, each directing a short segment portraying encounters between younger and older men. Through these stories, the film examines how attitudes toward desire, relationships, and queer identity shift over time. Moments of curiosity, misunderstanding, attraction, and vulnerability reveal both the gaps and the connections between generations shaped by different social climates. By juxtaposing perspectives formed in eras of repression with those emerging in more open contexts, the film reflects on how LGBTQ+ experiences evolve while shared needs for intimacy, recognition, and connection remain constant. The result is a provocative and intimate mosaic about age, memory, and the changing landscape of queer life.

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.

The film explores the life and career of the Hamburg-born musician, whose creative work began in the West German post-punk scene of the 1980s.

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...

From Go Fish to Paris is Burning to The Watermelon Woman, this festival favorite goes behind the scenes to reveal seven successful lesbian directors. These talented movie-makers enlighten and entertain as they explore their sexual identity, growing up gay, inspirations and techniques, Hollywood vs. Indie, and of course, love and sex, onscreen and off. The conversations are intimate, the topics unlimited, and the clips from their work enthralling! Featuring Cheryl Dunye, Rose Troche, Jennie Livingston, Monika Treut, Maria Maggenti, Su Friedrich and Heather MacDonald.

Masculinity/Femininity is an experimental film project interrogating normative notions of gender, sexuality and performance. Shot primarily on Super 8, the project merges academic and creative critique -- a document of gender de-construction rather than a documentary about gender construction.