Lewis Klahr Downs are Feminine USA, 1993, 10 mins, video

Annie Sprinkle Herstory of Porn USA, 1999, 70 mins, video

Carolee Schneemann Fuses USA, 1964-67, 25 mins, 16mm

The films in this list deal frankly with all aspects of sexuality, including pornography, orgasms, fetishism, transexuality and sexual politics. Many of them are funny, some are transgressive and none are for the easily offended.

See also:
GAY & LESBIAN

AL + AL
HARD DRIVE (A:)
UK, 2004, 8 mins, digital video
Hard Drive (A : ) simulates an inertial journey through the world wide web.
AL + AL ride their search engine in a quest to find bodies stripped and ready for intimacy.
In this coded space, erotic contact becomes an onanistic hallucination and the body disappears into a mental universe of mediated masks.

JOHNNY ARMSTRONG, ALBERT JACCOMA & ANNE SPRINKLE
LINDA/LES AND ANNIE
USA, 1990, 32 mins, video
It's a fun, unique, sexy and informative video docu-drama about Les Nichols, a woman who became a man (and is now actually a surgically-made hermaphrodite). It includes an intimate view of the night he and Annie Sprinkle tried out his new, surgically-constructed penis for the first time. His dual genitalia and all of their functions are shown in graphic detail. Revealing interviews and explicit medical photographs make this film of great interest to sex therapists, film buffs, and connoisseurs of the unusual alike.

SEBASTIAN BUERKNER
GLANCE PROJECT
UK, 2005, 1 min loop, video
Glance project challenges the possibility of capturing imagery in a single frame. A short, strobing loop of sexual poses is repeated ad infinitum, accompanied by the overpowering sound of a helicopter. While initially the flickering images seem too quick to discern, after a while certain suggestive details can be picked out.

STEPHEN DWOSKIN
MOMENT
UK, 1968, sound, B&W, 13 mins, 16mm
'With Tina Fraser. One single continuous shot of a girl's face before, during and after an orgasm. A concentration on the subtle changes within the face - going from an objective look into a subjective one and then back out .... Moment is not a woman alone, but with her "in person." Have you ever really watched the face in orgasm?' - S.D.

Moment presents a continuous, fixed gaze by the camera at a girl's face. The fixity, although paralleling the spectator's position, nevertheless marks itself off as 'different' from our view because it refuses the complex system of cuts, movements, 'invisible' transitions etc. which classic cinema developed to capture our 'subjectivity' and absorb it into the filmic text.

'In this way, the distinction between the camera and the viewer is emphasized. Moreover, the sadistic components inherent in the pleasurable exercise of the 'controlling' gaze are returned to the viewer, as it is he/she who must construct the 'scenario' by combining a reading of the image with an imagined (but suggested) series of happenings off-screen.' - Paul Willemen

RACHEL FINKLESTEIN
3 SHORT EPISODES
UK, 1979, sound, B&W, 20 mins, 16mm
The film takes a look at female sexuality in three short episodes.

The first is a black comedy, simply called Penis Envy. The second Stop Pushing, reworks pornographic film footage into a frenzy. In part three, Towards a New Female Sexuality the mood changes to one of intimacy as we see a woman's loving relationship with her own body. Although the film is in three parts, there is one underlying theme, my personal dissatisfaction with the kind/type of sexual relationships men impose on women. The continuity of the film is found in my search for a new female sexuality. - R.F.

IAN HELLIWELL
INTERPENETRATION
UK, 2004, sound, colour, 4 mins, video
An offbeat 1970s super 8 sex film, featuring an amorous couple in an art gallery, dismantled and reassembled using tape splicing, double projection and treated sounds from a 4 track cassette.

TAKAHIKO IIMURA
FACE
Japan, 1968-69, sound, colour, 18 mins, 16mm
Starring: Mario Montez, Donna Kerness and Linda. Voice: Akiko Iimura.

Three faces on the sexual process shot separately and edited into a film. Sound is continuous laughing repeated from a loop-tape. - T.I.

JO ANN KAPLAN
THE STORY OF I
UK, 1997, 23 mins, video
A woman sits alone in a bare white tiled bath, reading Georges Bataille's 'Story of the Eye.' The bizarre events described in the text provoke a series of fantasies in which the room and its accoutrements become the stage and the woman the main player.

As her dreams unfold in the liquid medium of the bath, she becomes the 'eye' of the story and her own body the object of its gaze. With a feminine hand, THE STORY OF I plucks Bataille's central metaphor from its original context and re-invents its erotic vision from the inside out. The eye is the vagina, seen throught he blood, urine and tears, it looks at itself in a mirror.

LEWIS KLAHR
DOWNS ARE FEMININE
USA, 1993, 10 mins, video
"Lewis Klahr's Downs Are Feminine unveils a kind of rainy day, indoor, peaceable kingdom of desultory and idyllic debauchery, masturbatory reveries and hermaphroditic transformations. Klahr's oneric collages graft '70s porn of pallid stubbly flesh flagrantly onto Good Housekeeping/Architectural Digest decor (varicolored crab-orchard stone foyers, modacrylic sunbursts, jalousie windows and orientalist metal scrollwork), interior states where characters despoil themselves in Quaalude interludes of dreamy couplings. In this out-of-touch realm, touching is intelligence gathering for a carnal knowledge that will never attain its platonic ideal. The whole atmosphere is pervaded with euphoria, a hopelessness without despair, a contentment beyond longing. If Klahr's Yesterday's Glue presented an after-hours club world of pining narcissists where the mandatory sex, drugs and rock and roll was glacial if not sinister, Downs Are Feminine presents a world that edges past despondency to become an amoral libertine glade that is at its core abeyant but benevolent." - Mark McElhatten

HELEN LEE
SALLY'S BEAUTY SPOT
Canada, 1990, sound, B&W, 12 mins, 16mm
Using scenes from The World of Suzie Wong this experimental film examines Western concepts of Asian femininity through one woman's obsession with a dark mole on her breast.

KEELY MACAROW
EAT MY SEX
UK, 1993, 9 mins, video
Shot in the streets and homes of London and the open air, EAT MY SEX is a celebration of sex, a de-mystification of the phallus and an exploration of the body, both sexual and political. Scenes of almost Bacchic abandon are given a voice-over of an unconsciously self-parodic 1950s BBC English accent putting forth an anti-sex, pro-censorship point-of-view which is then mixed with another voice offering much the same opinions so that their incomprehensibility becomes a metaphor for their moral incoherence. The essential deadness of their repressive values is counterpointed with the life enhancement of sex. The video could be seen as a journey from public to private worlds where realism merges with fantasy and the surreal to offer a creative overview of heterosexuality from a woman's point of view.

JOHN MAYBURY
PREMONITIONS OF ABSURD PERVERSION IN SEXUAL PERSONAE PT 1
UK, 1993, 60 mins, video
'Pieced together from a ten year stockpile of evocative, personal images, Maybury's tape uses multi-form mixing techniques in a typically freeform exploration of the polymorphous field of desire and sexuality.' - Steven Bode

LUTHER PRICE
SODOM
USA, sound, colour, 25 mins, 16mm
"Power, control, brutality – all are there, companians to lust and pleasure – even the sex and death equation whether related to AIDS or not… Sade and Bataille both explored the darker side of sex, as has Kenneth Anger. It seems to me that Luther Price has upped the ante. I see Sodom as part of a tradition whose precursors, perhaps, are Anger’s Fireworks and Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour. These films, now distanced by history, challenged received notions of sexual portrayal and were contoversial in their time. There have been few films that dealt with gay sexuality since."– Michael Wallin

CLAUDIA SCHILLINGER
BETWEEN
Germany, 1989, sound, B&W & colour, 10 mins, 16mm
'The most accomplished of the films under discussion is undoubtedly Between by the West German Claudia Schillinger. Transferred to film from tape, and beautifully lit, shot and edited, Between consists of a rapid sequence on moments of sexual activity. The recurring image is of a naked woman with a strapped-on dildo, which she caresses in mock masturbation. In her gyrations in front of the camera, the familiar image of the go-go dancer is utterly subverted and transformed by the presence of the false penis. In subsequent scenes she caresses, fucks and buggers a variety of partners whose gender is never firmly established. At one point we think we see a man, his penis just visible in shadow at the extreme edge of frame, and yet...' - Nicky Hamlyn, Performance Magazine.

CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN
FUSES
USA, 1964-67, silent, colour, 25 mins, 16mm
'By interweaving and compounding images of sexual love with images of mundane joy (the sea, a cat, window-filtered light), she expresses sex without the self consciousness of a spectacle, without an idea of expressivity, in her words, 'free in a process which liberates our intentions from our conceptions.' Carolee and her lover James Tenney emerge from nebulous clusters of colour and light and are seen in every manner of sexual embrace...one overall mosaic of flesh and textures and passionate embraces. Every element of the traditional stag film is here - fellatio, cunnilingus, close-ups of genitals and penetrations, sexual acrobatics-yet there's none of the prurience and dispassion usually associated with them. There is only a fluid oceanic quality that merges the physical act with the metaphysical connotations, very Joycean and very erotic.' - Gene Youngblood, Expanded Cinema.

Busted in San Francisco. Acclaimed by Antonioni and Kubrick.

M. M. SERRA
L'AMOUR FOU
USA, 1992, sound, colour, 17 mins, 16mm
'L'Amour Fou by M. M. Serra is a curious meditation on the pleasures and terrors of s/m, in which interviews with enthusiasts collide with choice porn clips, Fleisher cartoons, Hans Bellmer poupees and a couple of sphincter-tightening routines. The results are compelling, this film lingers, never once slipping into hype or deadly cool.' - Manohla Dargis, Reel To Reel, Village Voice, 1992.

ANNIE SPRINKLE
HERSTORY OF PORN
USA, 1999, 70 mins, video
Grab your popcorn! Whether you are a movie buff, art connoisseur, student of human sexuality, spiritual seeker, radical feminist, or just plain horny - legendary Annie Sprinkle invites you on a trip to seven different movie theaters where she interacts with the best (and worst) clips from many of the 150+ movies that made her a one-of-a-kind star. Annie's behind the scenes commentary (a la Mystery Science Theater) is often provocative, revealing and humorous.

ANNIE SPRINKLE & MARIA BEATTY
SLUTS & GODDESSES VIDEO OR HOW TO BECOME A SEX GODDESS IN 101 EASY STEPS
USA, 1992, 52 mins, video
'This video is a humorous, absurd, heartfelt and worshipful look at SEX. Guided through this unique adventure by sexpert extraordinaire Annie Sprinkle and the 'Transformation Facilitators,' you will explore ancient and forbidden knowledge about female sexuality. This fresh and inspiring video features many exotic ways to stimulate sexual and sensual pleasure. You will encounter flagellation with oak leaves, Chinese sword-dancing, striptease, body contortions, tattooing, piercing, shaving and gender-play. The mysteries of sex magic and female ejaculation will be revealed. You will learn about Tantric breathing, primal screaming, the joys of group masturbation while meditating, and not least of all, you will witness a profound five minute long orgasm. Featuring ten magnificent, hot Goddesses, this tape is explicit and lavishly produced. Prepare for an 'eye fuck'! Challenging the boundaries of femininity, the 'good girl/bad girl' myths as well as the sexual norms, it is controversial and thought provoking and thus best viewed in a group. This insightful work of art will remind you that your sexuality is precious and sacred.' - Annie Sprinkle and Maria Beatty

ANNA THEW
CLING FILM
UK, 1993, sound, colour, 20 mins, 16mm.
'Cling Film is a fast cut safer sex collage film, which travels humorously and recklessly through a catalogue of sexual encounters and mishaps. Opening with excerpts from World Health Organisation press releases on the reality of heterosexual transmission of HIV and AIDS, repressive fear-mongering tactics of the media are shunned in favour of a direct and lively attack on censorship and its bedmates, guilt and embarrassment.

'...as to corrupting public morals and outraging public decency...', legal text becomes superimposed over the practical act of putting on a condom. The British Obscenities Laws and antiquated attitudes are seen as a direct hindrance to health care. Along with written captions and clips of Nosferatu disintegrating at the sight of a bit of rubber, Thew takes to the silent screen, making for some hilarious as well as confrontational episodes.' - M.L.

CLEO UEBELMANN
MANO DESTRA
Switzerland, 1986, sound mag stripe, B&W, 53 mins, 16mm
'Mano Destra' is an enigmatically stylised and exquisitely photographed study of the body as object. Achieving cult status among the S&M Underground, the film however confronts the paradox of S&M: the consensual nature of the relationship. The domina, Cleo Uebelmann herself - cool, detached,competent and precise, sculpts the body of her'Victim'/'Client' into an aesthetic object. The audience, however, wonders if Domina and client are one and the same woman. Birgit Hein notes the 'tenderness of the film in relation to the shock horror with which it had been received by certain audiences.'

'Mano Destra' challenges fondly held views of the 'correct' female sexuality and so creates both feelings of outrage and liberation.- Karen Smith.

SUE UNDERWOOD
PORNOGRAPHY - A VIDEO
UK, 1981, 13 mins, video
How do people see pornography - how does it affect them?

RODNEY WERDEN
I'LL BET YOU AIN'T NEVER SEEN NOTH'N LIKE THIS BEFORE...
Canada, 1980, 36 mins, video
An older man demonstrates his sexual self-sufficiency in an extremely candid interview.