USA 1986 | Director, Script, Production: Lizzie Borden | Cast: Louise Smith, Deborah Banks, Liz Caldwell, Ellen McElduff | Production: Alternate Current | Colour | 35mm | 93 min | amer. OV with german SUB | Bonner Kinemathek
WORKING GIRLS was inspired by the experiences of sex workers who Lizzie Borden got to know when she was shooting her cult feminist film BORN IN FLAMES. Told from the perspective of Molly (Louise Smith), it portrays a working day in the life of a young woman who is a photographer and also a part-time worker in a private bordello in Manhattan. The view is rich in detail and almost sober-minded, void of sensationalism and the monotone portrayals of prostitution. Borden stages the constant comings and goings of johns; discussions and pastimes among colleagues and negotiations with the ambitious bordell madam. ... Another aspect is the continuous positioning of individuals (the women come from very different social backgrounds) in a business where questions about the boundaries between the private and the professional are very present.
Acronyms | |
---|---|
amer. | American English |
b/w | Black and white |
OV | Original version |
SUB | Subtitles |
+SUB | electronic live subtitling (below the image) |
INT | Intertitles |
Countries | |
---|---|
AT | Austria |
FRG | Federal Republic of Germany (historic) |
BLR | Belarus |
DE | Germany |
CAN | Canada |
GDR | German Democratic Republic (historic) |
EGY | Egypt |
FR | France |
GB | Great Britain |
URY | Uruguay |
BRA | Brasil |
SWE | Sweden |
UKR | Ukraine |
PL | Poland |
IDN | Indonesia |
PRT | Portugal |
HRV | Croatia |
ECU | Ecuador |
HUN | Hungary |
AUS | Australia |
IT | Italy |
MEX | Mexico |
IND | India |
Introduction by Madeleine Bernstorff
Madeleine Bernstorff (Berlin), writer und film curator. Research-based, mostly collaborative projects. Co-founder of Kino Sputnik Berlin in 1984 as well as the feminist film group Blickpilotin in 1989. Film/video programmes about Early Cinema and the Suffragette Movement, filmmaker René Vautier in an internationalistic and anti-colonialistic context, Carole Roussopoulos’ video activism, „Kamerahelm“-artist Margaret Raspé or the political/technical surroundings of film activist Ella Bergmann-Michel’s works. Bernstorff is a member of the commission of International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and teaches film history. Occasionally films/videos of the „small kind“: trailers, video-letters, Super8-movies. In 2016/17 she produced the 23-video-series NSU-Komplex auflösen! with the group SPOTS.