THE PLEASURES OF THE NEW FLESH

WELCOME TO THE MELBOURNE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL’S ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF SEXUALITY IN ALL OF ITS DEVIATIONS! THIS YEAR, WE OFFER YET ANOTHER SENSUAL SMORGASBORD OF TANTILISING DELIGHTS. SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS…

CURATED BY RICHARD WOLSTENCROFT

MUFF GUEST JOHN PATTI’S
XAVIERA HOLLANDER: THE HAPPY HOOKER
A portrait of a Sexual Revolutionary (USA, 2008)
Directed by Robert Dunlap
Produced by JohnPatti
Cast: Damon Gameau, Ayse Tezel, Leah De Niese and
Samantha Noble
7pm / Fri 10 Oct / The George
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
You’ve all heard of Xaviera Hollander’s classic book The Happy Hooker. MUFF 9 presents an amazing doco on it with the producer as international guest! After years of hard work, editing and re-editing, adding new music scores and slaving away to make this documentary a success, director Robert Dunlap, producer John Patti and Xaviera herself are proud to say that their film is playing MUFF 2008.

Dunlap, who has worked on the 68-minute film for more than six years, amassing almost 400 minutes of footage, said Hollander was one of our era’s most significant sexual icons. He said he found it fascinating that her book, which has sold 20 million copies to date, is still being picked up today.

Arguably the most famous name of the modern madams who have titillated Americans over the years, Xaviera Hollander was assured her place in history with her autobiographical mega-seller, “The Happy Hooker: My Own Story”, now in its 28th printing with over
20 million copies sold--and the 1975 movie
of the same name starring Lynn Redgrave
as Hollander.

According to the filmmakers, Producer John Patrick Patti and Director Robert Dunlop, Hollander had a great impact on the feminist movement of the 1970s and was punished for her sexual frankness, her provocative views, and her honesty about her commercial enterprises by deportation from the United States and Canada. Nevertheless, Americans and the rest of the world continued to enjoy Hollander’s books (20 including her current title, “The Happy Hooker’s Guide to Sex: 69 Orgasmic Ways to Pleasure a Woman”)
and her Penthouse magazine column Call
Me Madam.

One of the most interesting explorations of the documentary is Xaviera’s evolution from her first years in a Japanese concentration camp in Indonesia, her subsequent relocation with her family to the Netherlands and her skills as a secretary with fluency in four languages. Coming to New York for a job at the Dutch Consulate, Hollander (then known as Vera De Vries) indulged her insatiable sexual appetite freely until a hooker advised her to make money from “that goldmine you’re sitting on”. Featuring Q&A with international guest John Patti.

BODY LOVE (France, 1977)
Directed by Lasse Braun
Cast: Lolita Da Nova
11pm / Fri 10 Oct / Glitch Bar
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Have you got the amazing Klaus Schultz soundtrack to this film, like I have? Yes? Ever wondered what the film was like? Well find out here, people! Directed by none other than Lasse Braun, this film is classy erotica with an amazing score. Don’t miss this rare treat.

COURT OF LONELY ROYALS
(Australia, 2006)
Directed by Rohan Michael Hoole
Cast: Damon Gameau, Ayse Tezel, Leah De Niese and
Samantha Noble
5pm / Sun 19 Oct / The George
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
An amazing Australian film that we missed playing last year. An erotic drug fuelled fever dream shot in Melbourne about assassins who use the weakness of their victims to kill them. This amazing debut for filmmaker Rohan Michael Hoole established him as a talent to watch. MUFF is proud to add this new amazing Australian film to the MUFF lineup under the Sexy MUFF banner.

LA FESSEE (France, 1976)
Directed by Claude Bernard-Aubert
9pm / Thu 16 Oct / Glitch Bar
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
La Fesse means spanking in French. So suggest that next time you’re in Paris with some hottie, as I’ve done in the past, I must admit… French women love to be spanked and this film celebrates that fact. Shot in the 1970s, La Fessee is one of the only films with the spanking fetish as its main story. Meet our protagonist as he goes from one horny strumpet to the next and disciplines with his own criss cross style the derriere of spunky French wenches. For CP deviants out there, it’s a must see.

GEORGE BATAILLE’S
STORY OF THE EYE (USA, 2004)
Directed by Andrew Repasky Mcelhinney
Cast: Melissa Elizabeth Forgione, Querelle Haynes, Sean Timothy Sexton and Courtney Shea
11pm / Fri 17 Oct / Noise Bar
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Amazing adaptation of the classic transgressive work by Georges Bataille. McElhinney uses the Bataille novel as a springboard to present the audience with startling and shocking images of excess and transgression. Shot on video, the film has a unique aesthetic and along with The Atrocity Exhibition, also showing at MUFF, they make amazing cinematic works out of difficult novels. Do not miss out on Bataille’s Story of the Eye!