Venus Boyz

Colour, 35mm
Switzerland/Germany/USA, 2001, 102 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

This documentary by director Gabriel Baur takes us into the world of women who become men – some just for one night, some for their whole lives. The director’s journey begins in New York at a show called Drag King, where women perform various acts dressed as their male alter egos. What is the reason behind their attempts to change their sex? What does this change mean for them? Is it just for fun, is it a game or a vital necessity? And what does it really mean to be a man or a woman at the beginning of the new millennium? These are the questions the director puts to all the women who create for themselves a kind of “inter-sexual” state. One of them says of her experiences: “Biologically I’m a woman and I don’t want to change this, but it’s important for me that various forms of womanhood exist and mine is certainly highly androgynous." In her documentary, the director travels from America to the continent, to England, and also discusses the “movement” in some kind of historical context.

About the director

Gabriel Baur studied ethnology at university in Zurich. She then left for New York where she studied film (1983-1984). During the years 1983-1988 she worked as an assistant director in New York, Managua and Vienna. She gained more experience in directing and scripting thanks to directors Wojciech Marczewski, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Frank Daniels. In 1994 she made the feature film Die Bettkönigin and in 1996 she began working on the film Venus Boyz. This film later won the Critics’ Week Award at the Locarno IFF. Filmography: A Tale (1984, short), Cada dia Historia (1986-87, documentary), Die Ausnahme und die Regel (1992, experimental film), Die Bettkönigin (1994, feature), Venus Boyz (2001, documentary).