New York City–based French filmmaker Marie Losier captures the freewheeling energy of the avant-garde underground through her playful, lovingly handmade 16 mm portraits of boundary-pushing musicians, artists, and performers. Her acclaimed feature documentaries THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE, about the gender-bending journey of industrial-music pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, and CASSANDRO, THE EXOTICO!, an intimate snapshot of a drag-queen luchador, reflect Losier’s ability to achieve an almost symbiotic creative rapport with her larger-than-life subjects. They are presented alongside a selection of the filmmaker’s exuberantly inventive experimental shorts, which feature such counterculture luminaries as George Kuchar, Guy Maddin, Alan Vega, and Tony Conrad.
This interview with director Marie Losier was recorded in 2020.
Directed by Marie Losier • 2011 • United States
Starring Genesis P-Orridge, Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge
Filmed over the course of seven years, this tender portrait of industrial-music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge and their late partner, erstwhile dominatrix Lady Jaye, is a love story unlike any anot...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2018 • France
Starring Cassandro
Famed as much for his flamboyant drag and sky-high pompadour as for his show-stopping kicks and flips, Cassandro’s trailblazing ascent as one of lucha libre’s first openly gay wrestlers has resonated internationally for a quarter centur...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2002 • United States
The story of Joan of Arc is one of the most frequently told tales in cinema’s hundred-plus-year history. This version is a postmortem/postmodern collaboration between Carl Theodor Dreyer and Marie Losier, who inserts herself into the 1928 film as G...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2002 • United States
In 1971, Ingmar Bergman made his first English-language film, THE TOUCH, starring ensemble regulars Max von Sydow and Bibi Andersson, along with seventies everyman Elliott Gould. Thirty years later, Marie Losier decided to recast herself in Gould’s...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2003 • United States
Starring Mike Kuchar
In this portrait of Mike Kuchar, the sultan of lo-fi camp floats through his memories as sea, space, and sky drift past. Wrapped in odd costumes, he frolics with the imaginary creatures surrounding him and recalls the creatures...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2004 • United States
Starring George Kuchar
Underground-cinema icon George Kuchar travels through snow confetti, strobe flashes, and artificial wind as he describes his weather diaries. And then George joins Janet Leigh in the shower. Wearing a red raincoat and a showe...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2005 • United States
Starring Richard Foreman
“The theater is about sex.” At least according to Richard Foreman, the father of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. THE ONTOLOGICAL COWBOY documents Foreman’s invocation of the “manifest destiny” of the avant-garde theater. ...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2005 • United States
Starring George Kuchar, Marie Losier, Jason Livingston
Five women picnic on the roof of a warehouse in charming Long Island City, a forest of skyscrapers gleaming across the river. But when a swarm of flies interrupts their feast of chocolate-cover...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2006 • United States
A giant pot is descending from the sky. Twenty winsome damsels are landing on planet Earth, emerging from the pot filled with 280 pounds of spaghetti. A battle for sauce and survival ensues.
Directed by Marie Losier • 2007 • United States
Starring Marie Losier, Guy Maddin, Juliana Francis
Two sisters, five brothers, a doctor, two nurses, and the miraculous birth of a pair of hands . . . but whose hands? Made in collaboration with Guy Maddin.
Directed by Marie Losier • 2008 • United States
Starring Tony Conrad
This is a dream portrait of Tony Conrad, the legendary experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Here we discover Conrad playing in his studio with costumes and wigs, practicing his violin i...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2009 • United States
Starring Genesis P-Orridge
This campy music video, made in the style of an early-sixties Scopitone film, features ten boys in singlets and girls in red tutus, all joyfully dancing with Genesis P-Orridge in a boxing ring.
Directed by Marie Losier • 2010 • United States
Singer April March and musician Julien Gasc perform the famous French song of the title while flying over a superimposed dreamscape of clouds, birds, bubbles, smoke, and glitter.
Directed by Marie Losier • 2012 • United States
Starring Chong Gon Byun
Acclaimed mixed-media artist Chong Gon Byun uses found and discarded objects to create intricate, surrealist sculptures that explore the clash between postindustrial civilization and our contemporary consumerist culture.
Directed by Marie Losier • 2014 • Mexico, United States
Rossy, Esther, and Cynthia, three sisters and professional luchadoras part of the Dynasty Moreno, are competitive wrestlers in the ring. But they also bring lucha libre into life, wrestling with knives, pig heads, flowers and feathers!
Directed by Marie Losier • 2014 • United States
Starring Alan Vega
This intimate portrait depicts the rebellious soul of groundbreaking visual artist and pioneer of minimalist electronic rock Alan Vega, vocalist and composer for the influential postpunk band Suicide. Alan plays with the camera w...
Directed by Marie Losier • 2018 • United States
Artist Peter Hristoff teaches painting the way a filmmaker or theater director commandeers his actors, with the class as his playground, his stage. The students surround a field of models in handmade costumes who dance, pause, create emotions, and ...
