Maria Beatty

For thirty years, Maria Beatty has been producing and directing cutting edge art films dealing with feminine and queer eroticism. As a precursor to the so-called new wave "Erotic Noir", she is known for her profound excursions into female sexuality, body politics and the rights and wishes of lesbian persons. Her vision is inspired by German expressionist cinema, French surrealism, the American film Noir and gay underground filmmakers such as Jean Genet and Kenneth Anger, who set new standards in erotic cinema. Briefly after the start of her career in the 80s as a photographer specialised in musicians and performance artists, Beatty turned towards the film format Super 8 and produced experimental short films centred on interesting women and transgender persons from her old neighbourhood, Lower East Side, New York. In 1989, she directed her first film titled "Gang of Souls", a documentary investigating the influence of Beat Poets on the artistic rock and poetry scene. Artists introduced in this film include among others William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Gregor Corso, Jim Carroll, Marianne Faithfull, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins. Soon after, she shot two more documentaries dealing with women's bodies in performance art: “Sphinxes Without Secrets” and “Sluts and Goddesses". Moreover, Maria Beatty has continuously worked as a curator at a cultural media centre and there focused on videos of activists and minorities in her work. In 1995, Beatty eventually devised and produced her first erotic film in black and white, accompanied by experimental music by John Zorn: "The Black Glove", a film about a submissive maid in a sadomasochistic relationship with another woman soon became a cult film. In 1997, Maria Beatty started her own sales company Bleu Productions. There she produced, staged and edited more than thirty erotic films with lesbian and queer content. Museums: New York Whitney Museum, New York Modern Art Museum, New York The new Museum, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Festivals and Awards: International Film Festival Rotterdam in Holland, Fetish Film Festival in Paris, The Barcelona Internationals, Short Film Festival Athens, Erotic Film Festival, The Seattle Erotic Film Festival, The Amsterdam Erotic Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival Documentaries: Maria Beatty was the theme of the documentary "Didn't Do It For".