"I have trouble with boys voices"

Last night I went to see the only film on the Leeds International Film Festival programme that excited me enough to attend the festival, Who's Afraid Of Kathy Acker?
It was really great and I encourage anyone to see it if they get the chance (alas the screenings in Leeds have now finished)

The film is described here...

WHO'S AFRAID OF KATHY ACKER? is the first film to explore the outrageous life and times of the banned American writer, Kathy Acker, a woman who lived her life without boundaries. Named one of America’s original “outlaw writers” by the New York Times, Acker created challenging and sexually graphic fiction rooted in the same New York underground scene which inspired the worldwide punk movement. This first film, conceived & directed by the young Austrian Artist, Barbara Caspar, and co-written with English filmmaker Andrew Standen-Raz, covers every aspect of Acker's life, from her wild early years in New York City to her untimely death in Tijuana, Mexico, of breast cancer in 1997. Caspar's film is a multi-layered, artistic tour de force--a sophisticated mix of animations, graphic text and filmed reenactments of scenes from Acker's bestseller "Blood & Guts in High School", shot in NYC, as well as a host of interviews with leading figures of the time connected with Kathy, including William Burroughs, Kathleen Hanna & Bikini Kill, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Barney Rosset and Ira Silverberg.

It kinda blew my mind with inspiration.

In the US the film appears to have been distributed by Women Make Movies, a multicultural, multiracial, non-profit media arts organization which facilitates the production, promotion, distribution, and exhibition of independent films and videotapes by and about women.
How rad is that!



The last book I read by Acker was Pussycat Fever, (illustrated by Diane Dimassa) which I'm gonna dig out and re-read cuz I remember at the time being totally overwhelmed and confused and challenged by it, and in truth not getting much from it; so perhaps it's worth another shot, especially after learning so much about Acker last night.




Writing is what I did when I was alone with no one watching me or telling me what to do. I could do whatever I wanted.

"Women need to become literary “criminals”, break the literary laws and reinvent their own, because the established laws prevent women from presenting the reality of their lives."