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MUTZENBACHER

By Ruth BECKERMANN

RUTH BECKERMANN FILMPRODUKTION - as PROD

Documentary - Completed 2022

Various men step in front of the camera to engage with the scandalous, anonymously written novel of Viennese modernism "Josefine Mutzenbacher" (1906). As they read, perform extracts and comment on the work, they reveal their relationship to sexuality.

Festivals
& Awards

Berlinale - Berlin IFF 2022

Encounters Best Film

San Sebastian FF 2022

Zabaltegi - Tabakalera

New York FF 2022

Currents

Subversive Film Festival Zagreb 2022

Special Jury Prize

Al Este International Film Festival Lima 2022

Press Jury Prize

- Year of production
- 2022
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- AUSTRIA
- Languages
- GERMAN
- Duration
- 100 mn
- Director(s)
- Ruth BECKERMANN
- Synopsis
- For more than a hundred years, the novel, “Josefine Mutzenbacher or The Story of a Viennese Whore”, has been the subject of controversy for its lustful depiction of child and female sexuality. Though published anonymously, the novel has over the years been attributed to the Austrian writer, Felix Salten (the author of “Bambi”), and despite being banned for a period has also been celebrated as a world-renowned work of Viennese literature.
  With an ad in a newspaper, Ruth Beckermann announces a casting call for a film based on the well-known pornographic novel: “Looking for men between the ages of 16 and 99.” Shot in a former coffin factory, the film, MUTZENBACHER, sees a hundred readers confronted with excerpts from the text. And just as in real life, reading these “offensive” passages on the set evokes not only personal memories and erotic fantasies, but also reactions of denial, rejection, self-distancing and strategies of justification. We live and love in an age when sex is more ubiquitous than ever, and yet at the same time is met with a highly charged moral environment.

MUTZENBACHER

Festivals& Awards

Festivals
& Awards