Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch

Born: June 2, 1959
in Rochester, New York, USA
Lydia Lunch is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker, whose career was spawned by the New York no wave scene. Her work typically features provocative and confrontational noise music delivery, and has maintained an anti-commercial ethic, operating independently of major labels and distributors.

Movies for Lydia Lunch...

Title: 70 Years of Youth Revolt
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: November 21, 2020
Type: TV
A look back at the social movements, revolts and youth subcultures from the post-war period to the present day: after the World War II, the left-bank of Paris became a mecca for jazz and alternative living, youth culture was born with trailblazing American movies, and rock became the soundtrack to a generation that wanted to change everything.
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My Lover The Killer
Title: My Lover The Killer
Released: September 2, 2020
Type: Movie
My Lover the Killer is the former title of the album by Lydia Lunch & Marc Hurtado released in 2016. The music, first languorous then abrasive, accompanies the verbal flow of the transgressive poetess who comes back to an intimate and violently tragic episode of her own life: her love and death story with Johnny O’Kane. With her long-time collaborator, Lydia Lunch, face to face with the camera, transforms this naked scene full of troubled anger into a deep dark confession. Hurtado’s images are saturated, grainy, willingly experimental and clash with those of an archive of furious performances. Just like the one who seeks to avoid taking part in her own prophecy.
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Spit and Ashes
Title: Spit and Ashes
Released: October 25, 2019
Type: Movie
Spit and Ashes is a reimagining of the historical violence waged against women by patriarchal forces in the name of religion, medicine and family. The High Priestess embodies the wild, sexual and grotesque - the un-tamable hunger of female desire and the ultimate threat to male power. The Midwife is the spirit of all women who sought knowledge and agency over their own bodies and paid for their agency with their lives. Through a series of erotic and brutal rituals these women come together to reclaim their bodies and prepare for the fight ahead.
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Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over
Title: Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over
Character: Self
Released: August 15, 2019
Type: Movie
The first career-spanning documentary retrospective of Lydia Lunch's confrontational, acerbic and always electric artistry. As New York City's preeminent No Wave icon from the late 70's, Lunch has forged a lifetime of music and spoken word performance devoted to the utter right of any woman to indulge, seek pleasure, and to say "fuck you!" as loud as any man. In this time of endless attacks on women this is a rallying cry to acknowledge the only thing that is going to bring us together - ART...as the universal salve to all of our traumas.
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L7: Pretend We're Dead
Title: L7: Pretend We're Dead
Character: Self
Released: October 13, 2017
Type: Movie
A real time journey witnessing the rise, fall, and ultimate redemption of the fierce feminist pioneers of American grunge punk: L7.
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The Circular Ruins
Title: The Circular Ruins
Character: Night (voice)
Released: December 9, 2014
Type: Movie
Six days of shooting through the desert deathscape, Mojave motels with bug blankets and bone white rocks, future retro Reno motels with pink light bulbs where we shot in kimonos and 7 inch heels until the sun came up, exploring death valley dunes while being our own crew and stars, to dance in the ruins of Rhyolite in Nevada where thunder cracked the sky.
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Kill Us All
Title: Kill Us All
Released: January 31, 2014
Type: Movie
Poetic seductress Lydia Lunch describes the destructive nature of a broken human before partaking in physical abuse of grown men with her younger counterpart.
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Wild Thing
Title: Wild Thing
Character: Self
Released: March 26, 2012
Type: Movie
A documentary about The Troggs (performers of Wild Thing) and other Rock bands.
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Bye Bye Blondie
Title: Bye Bye Blondie
Character: La chanteuse
Released: March 21, 2012
Type: Movie
A love story of two women who meet up in their late forties and attempt to retrieve the romance they had in their youth.
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The Hardcore Collection
Title: The Hardcore Collection
Released: February 21, 2012
Type: Movie
This DVD features 13 provocative short films by Richard Kern. Color & B&W film shorts with Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins and more. Includes Death Valley69 , The Right Side Of My Brain, You Killed Me First, The Bitches, The Sewing Circle, X is Y, Fingered, Horoscope, Submit to Me Now, My Nightmare, Manhattan Loves Suicides, Submit to Me, and Evil Cameraman. Music from Sonic Youth, Cop Shoot Cop, J.G. Thirwell, Butthole Surfers.
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Autoluminescent: Rowland S. Howard
Title: Autoluminescent: Rowland S. Howard
Character: Self
Released: October 27, 2011
Type: Movie
From myth to legend Rowland Howard appeared on the early Melbourne punk scene like a phantom out of Kafkaesque Prague or Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A beautifully gaunt and gothic aristocrat, the unique distinctive fury of his guitar style shot him directly into the imagination of a generation. He was impeccable, the austerity of his artistry embodied in his finely wrought form, his obscure tastes and his intelligently wry wit. He radiated a searing personal integrity that never seemed to tarnish. Despite the trials and tribulations of his career, in an age of makeover and reinvention, Rowland Howard never ‘sold out’. With recent and moving interviews, archival interviews and other fascinating and original footage, AUTOLUMINESCENT traces the life of Rowland S Howard. Capturing moments with the man himself and intimate missives from those who knew him behind closed doors; words and images etch light into what has always been the mysterious dark.
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Blank City
Title: Blank City
Character: Self
Released: April 6, 2011
Type: Movie
In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood.
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Fake Orgasm
Title: Fake Orgasm
Released: December 2, 2010
Type: Movie
Lazlo Pearlman is a conceptual artist, an activist capable of dinamiting our prejudices about sex and identity. What it seems to be a reflexion about lies in our sexual lives suddenly turns out to be a sharp discourse about gender theory and the continuous evolution of our identitiy. Fake Orgasm, first part of an ambitious multidisciplinary project about sexuality and identity, hits our minds and forces a change of perspective to reconsider some concepts we've been educated with and grown up with.
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Flood Stains
Title: Flood Stains
Character: Saltmaster
Released: November 20, 2010
Type: Movie
Renowned artist Lydia Lunch joins architect Juan Azulay in an experimental performance broadcast live from the SCI-Arc Gallery.
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Godkiller: Walk Among Us
Title: Godkiller: Walk Among Us
Character: Bub (voice)
Released: May 25, 2010
Type: Movie
Even in a postapocalyptic future in which Earth has been colonized by aliens, humans need hearts to live, so when an orphan boy's sister needs a new one, he'll go to just about any length to get it in this "illustrated film" from Matt Pizzolo.
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Mutantes
Title: Mutantes
Character: Self - Interviewee
Released: December 21, 2009
Type: Movie
Mutantes sheds light on a feminism that was little talked about in France. This documentary comprises of a series of interviews conducted in the USA, Paris and Barcelona, and documents from the archives about the political action of sex workers, queer activists and post-pornographic performances.
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No Wave - Underground '80: Berlin - New York
Title: No Wave - Underground '80: Berlin - New York
Character: Self
Released: July 3, 2009
Type: Movie
the connections and energy flow between the various artists populating the 1980s sub-cultures of New York and Berlin. Features Jim Jarmusch, Lydia Lunch, Blixa Bargeld, Alex Hacke, Gudrun Gut, Nick Cave, and others. An important film. Bravo, Mr. Dreher.
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NYC Foetus
Title: NYC Foetus
Character: Herself
Released: May 15, 2009
Type: Movie
A documentary about composer/producer/performer JG Thirlwell and his musical alter-egos, including Foetus, Steroid Maximus and Manorexia. Featuring interviews with Thirlwell, Matt Johnson (The The), Alex Hacke (Neubauten), Michael Gira (Swans), Richard Kern, Lydia Lunch and more.
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For the End of Time
Title: For the End of Time
Released: January 1, 2009
Type: Movie
For the End of Time is a film about the mind… a film about the body and our inability to merge these two entities which are shaping a form of civilization known under the term “human”. A human is not a being unto itself. A human is a construct… a civilization-related coding of a certain precise time and place. A human is not a uniform creature. A human is a split between many things… but the worst is the split carried inside… that between the mind and the body… How can we feel others, if the only universe that an individual truly lives in and feels is his or her own universe? How can you feel for the other… How can the other feel for you? Only as much as the pain of the other resembles yours – thus as a reminiscence of one’s own pain. This is the only way. For the End of Time is a film on a quest… for the eternal longing “to find the real thing.
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Death of the Reel
Title: Death of the Reel
Character: Narrator
Released: June 6, 2008
Type: Movie
Guy Maddin flies to Kansas City, Missouri, in a vain attempt to save cinema as it continues to die from contempt and neglect.
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Lydia Lunch: Video Hysterie: 1978 - 2006
Title: Lydia Lunch: Video Hysterie: 1978 - 2006
Character: Herself
Released: January 1, 2008
Type: Movie
This fascinating and retrospective look at the music of the outspoken and multitalented Lydia Lunch represents every stage of her varied career, with featured songs such as "I Woke Up Screaming" from her Teenage Jesus and the Jerks days. Other songs spanning the decades in this collection include "Freud in Flop," "Sorry for Behaving So Badly," "Dead River," "Solo Mystico," "Summon," "Violence Is the Sport of God" and many more.
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Llik Your Idols
Title: Llik Your Idols
Character: Herself
Released: July 30, 2007
Type: Movie
Discover the New York underground scene during the 80s and throw yourself into an exciting, anarchic and repulsive world that you won't forget.
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Her Noise - The Making Of
Title: Her Noise - The Making Of
Released: November 26, 2006
Type: Movie
Her Noise was an exhibition which took place at South London Gallery in 2005 with satellite events at Tate Modern and Goethe-Institut, London. Her Noise gathered international artists who use sound to investigate social relations, inspire action or uncover hidden soundscapes. The exhibition included newly commissioned works by Kim Gordon & Jutta Koether, Hayley Newman, Kaffe Matthews, Christina Kubisch, Emma Hedditch and Marina Rosenfeld. A parallel ambition of the project was to investigate music and sound histories in relation to gender, and the curators set out to create a lasting resource in this area.
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Kill Your Idols: More.
Title: Kill Your Idols: More.
Character: Herself
Released: August 11, 2006
Type: Movie
A full-length feature documentary produced in 2006 which serves as a companion piece to and is included on the DVD of the 2004 film KILL YOUR IDOLS.
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American Fame Pt. 2: Forgetting Jonathan Brandis
Title: American Fame Pt. 2: Forgetting Jonathan Brandis
Character: Narrator
Released: January 20, 2005
Type: Movie
Cam Archer revisits the life of child actor Jonathan Brandis who committed suicide in 2003. Lydia Lunch narrates this meditation on fame, the actor’s pressure to remain in the public eye and the surreal events in the lead up to his unexplained death.
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The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
Title: The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
Character: Social Worker #2
Released: September 15, 2004
Type: Movie
Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.
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Kill Your Idols
Title: Kill Your Idols
Character: Herself
Released: April 8, 2004
Type: Movie
A 2004 documentary on thirty years of alternative rock 'n roll in NYC.Documenting the history from the genuine authenticity of No Wave to the current generation of would be icons and true innovators seeing to represent New York City in the 21st century
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D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist
Title: D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist
Character: Herself - Interviewee
Released: January 1, 2002
Type: Movie
This documentary features interviews with Ian MacKaye (Fugazi), J Mascis (Dinosaur jr.), John John Jesse (Demonic Erotic painter), Jim Rose (Jim Rose Sideshow), Jim Thirwell (Foetus), Lydia Lunch, Mike Watt (Minutemen), Richard Kern (Filmmaker), Ron Ashet
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Kiss My Grits: The Herstory of Women in Punk and Hard Rock
Title: Kiss My Grits: The Herstory of Women in Punk and Hard Rock
Character: Self
Released: July 19, 2001
Type: Movie
Part of "The Women in Music" series
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Richard Kern - Portrait: Live From New York
Title: Richard Kern - Portrait: Live From New York
Released: January 1, 1997
Type: Movie
Haxan Films-produced documentary on Richard Kern's work around 1997. Footage from his photo sessions, interviews with Kern and his models, etc. Features associates such as Lydia Lunch, Beth B and more.
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Lunch on Kern
Title: Lunch on Kern
Character: Herself
Released: January 1, 1997
Type: Movie
Featuring Lydia Lunch and the photography of Richard Kern. Teaser for an arté doc [Chris Habib] made as a kid
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Visiting Desire
Title: Visiting Desire
Character: Sitter
Released: November 19, 1996
Type: Movie
Complete strangers meet in a room to act out their sexual desires.
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Baby Trouble Hole
Title: Baby Trouble Hole
Character: Performer
Released: September 29, 1996
Type: Movie
Malga Kubiak stars in her exploration of sex and self. One woman's love to her own body interlaced with maggots; mixes x-rated porn. Voyeuristically titillating this avant-garde study of horrors of sex.
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Lydia Lunch: Malicious Intent
Title: Lydia Lunch: Malicious Intent
Released: September 5, 1994
Type: Movie
Collection of live spoken word performances by Lydia Lunch.
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Die Haut - Sweat
Title: Die Haut - Sweat
Released: July 7, 1994
Type: Movie
Die Haut filmed live at Tempodrom, Berlin, August 1992. Featuring guest vocalists Alexander Hacke, Anita Lane, Blixa Bargeld, Kid Congo Powers, Lydia Lunch and Nick Cave.
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No Age New York
Title: No Age New York
Character: Herself
Released: January 1, 1993
Type: Movie
A scattershot documentary about punk rock film makers in New York, with contributions from Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, Richard Kern, Beth B, Nick Zedd and many others. A love letter to the New York Underground.
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Thanatopsis
Title: Thanatopsis
Character: Herself
Released: May 22, 1991
Type: Movie
Beth B, in collaboration with legendary downtown performance artist/musician Lydia Lunch, creates a chilling yet poetic vision of despairing nihilism -- literally, a "meditation on death." In this noirishly rendered narrative, a woman negotiates the banalities of life.
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Kiss Napoleon Goodbye
Title: Kiss Napoleon Goodbye
Character: Hedda
Released: January 1, 1990
Type: Movie
Punk icons Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins star in this cult drama about a pregnant pianist named Hedda whose marriage to husband Neal (Don Bajema) hits the skids with the sudden appearance of a mysterious stranger.
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The Gun Is Loaded
Title: The Gun Is Loaded
Character: Herself
Released: December 16, 1989
Type: Movie
At the end of the Reagan years, rocker and confrontational performance artist Lydia Lunch launches a broadside. From a formal podium, she attacks the white male power structure of the US. Next she takes on her parents. Then, the volume lowered and the background the streets of New York, she lets us know what she thinks of life, of herself, and of us, anyone who's watching or listening. Life is depression, despair, and death. She's the girl next door gone bad. And us? Compliant sheep. Lunch lays out a challenge.
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Gang of Souls: A Generation of Beat Poets
Title: Gang of Souls: A Generation of Beat Poets
Character: Herself
Released: January 1, 1989
Type: Movie
Maria Beatty's documentary exploring the insights and influences of the American Beat Poets. The film conveys their consciousness and sensibility through interviews with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima, among others. Also weaves in additional commentary from contemporary musicians, poets and writers such as Marianne Faithfull, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins. Also expands upon how the poets reached new levels of creativity and inspired social change.
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Put More Blood Into the Music
Title: Put More Blood Into the Music
Character: Herself
Released: August 6, 1988
Type: Movie
PBS produced documentary in two parts: the first is dedicated to saxophonist and composer John Zorn; the second is about Sonic Youth at the height of their powers in 1988.
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Mondo New York
Title: Mondo New York
Character: Prologue
Released: April 22, 1988
Type: Movie
A young woman wanders around New York City and stumbles across a number of strange characters and settings that represent the "underground" areas of the city. She sees stand up comedy in Central Park, a prostitution auction, a voodoo ceremony, an S&M club, and a number of very interesting performance artists. These are just a few of the sights and sounds of New York that she encounters.
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Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread
Title: Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread
Released: March 18, 1987
Type: Movie
Penn Jillette and Teller are called upon to display their unique brand of humor to save civilization from strange extraterrestrial beings who have invaded Earth and who, disgruntled and bored with the mundane nature of human life, threaten to blow up the planet unless someone gives them a good reason not to.
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Submit to Me Now
Title: Submit to Me Now
Released: January 1, 1987
Type: Movie
Oddballs dancing, leering at camera, guy shaving a nontraditional part of his body and man ripping his own throat out, woman stabbing herself to death.
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Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends
Title: Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 1987
Type: Movie
Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends is a straight-to-video release by magicians Penn & Teller on Lorimar Home Video in 1987. The tape features seven different swindles or tricks that the home viewer can use to fool their friends. The tape was a companion piece to their best selling book of the same name. All of the tricks involve using a portion of the videotape.
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Fingered
Title: Fingered
Released: August 19, 1986
Type: Movie
One of Richard Kern’s most ambitious works is Fingered (1986), whose sarcastic disclaimer says “although it is not our sole intention to shock, insult, or irritate, you have been warned that we are catering only to our own preferences as members of the sexual minority.”
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Barbecue Death Squad From Hell
Title: Barbecue Death Squad From Hell
Character: Herself
Released: May 8, 1986
Type: Movie
Lydia Lunch and Penn & Teller jazz up the Jenkins' family picnic home movie, turning it into a backyard SOV slasher.
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Death Valley '69
Title: Death Valley '69
Released: January 1, 1986
Type: Movie
Death Valley '69 was the first music video by Sonic Youth. The video features the majority of the band in various states of bloody dismemberment interlaced with live footage of the band.
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Submit to Me
Title: Submit to Me
Released: January 1, 1985
Type: Movie
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School of Shame
Title: School of Shame
Released: December 1, 1984
Type: Movie
The film starts off with an eight minute concert sequence shot in the summer of '84 at a club called Eight BC in NYC. The band consists of Lydia Lunch, Pat Place and Connie Burg all playing guitars onstage, shot from skewed diagonal angles. Then a series of shots taken off the TV. Then two films Zedd made in 1976 or '77 when he lived in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
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The Right Side of My Brain
Title: The Right Side of My Brain
Released: April 9, 1984
Type: Movie
The sexual misadventures of a sexually insane girl.
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Like Dawn to Dust
Title: Like Dawn to Dust
Released: January 1, 1983
Type: Movie
Lydia Lunch laments the difficulty of relationships in the wilds of Connemara, Ireland.
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The Wild World of Lydia Lunch
Title: The Wild World of Lydia Lunch
Character: Herself
Released: January 1, 1983
Type: Movie
Shot entirely in Ireland and England on film stolen by Nick Zedd, the movie offers a rare glimpse into the unique private world of Lydia Lunch; The footage "narrated" by a break-up cassette sent from Lunch to Zedd.
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Vortex
Title: Vortex
Character: Angel Powers
Released: September 1, 1982
Type: Movie
A film noirish atmosphere is created to show detective Lunch (a popular underground musician and poet) plow her way through the plans of a corporate businessman who seeks government defense contracts through real "corporate wars" and the manipulation of politicians.
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DANCE OF THE DEAD CHILDREN
Title: DANCE OF THE DEAD CHILDREN
Released: June 2, 1982
Type: Movie
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Subway Riders
Title: Subway Riders
Released: April 2, 1981
Type: Movie
A psychotic saxophone player lures victims to deserted spots with his music and then guns them down.
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Raw Nerves: A Lacanian Thriller
Title: Raw Nerves: A Lacanian Thriller
Released: December 9, 1980
Type: Movie
A noir mostly set in a bathroom stall and stairwell. A private dick trapped in a tight spot. A narrator searching for a way out of the story.
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The Offenders
Title: The Offenders
Released: January 2, 1980
Type: Movie
A punk savage satire about a kidnapping.
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Black Box
Title: Black Box
Released: November 20, 1979
Type: Movie
A man is tortured by his girlfriend and then locked inside a black box.
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No New York Festival - Berlin
Title: No New York Festival - Berlin
Character: Self
Released: June 30, 1979
Type: Movie
The "No New York Festival" on a tour of Europe. This concert is at SO36, Kreuzberg, Berlin, where a sprawling variety of bands and musicians related to the NNNF performed.
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Beauty Becomes the Beast
Title: Beauty Becomes the Beast
Released: January 2, 1979
Type: Movie
Beauty Becomes the Beast describes a random access world mediated by TV images and shards of popular culture. The film features a powerful performance by Lydia Lunch regressing from adulthood to childhood, hinting at a sexually abusive past. It concerns itself with the position of woman as subject and the way women experience patriarchal law and the heterosexual order.
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Alien Portrait
Title: Alien Portrait
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 1979
Type: Movie
Filmed at CBGB’s, New York City at a Teenage Jesus & The Jerks concert on January 13th, 1978. The film shows the band members’ heads in slow motion over a live concert soundtrack.
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Rome '78
Title: Rome '78
Released: December 23, 1978
Type: Movie
Nares mocks up Ancient Rome by shooting in faux-classical sites like Grant's Tomb and Tribeca's American Thread Building, where a decrepit penthouse loft with a peeling-paint dome serves as an echoey stand-in for the imperial palace. The latter location required ingenuity: Posing as potential renters, Nares and associates asked the manager to show them the apartment, then unlocked the windows on the way out; a few hours later, they broke back into the space, full cast and crew in tow, to shoot the necessary scenes.
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Punking Out
Title: Punking Out
Character: Herself
Released: September 26, 1978
Type: Movie
The film documents the beginning of the punk rock movement in New York City at CBGB's, a punk night club, and the lifestyle that revolves around this scene. It presents a sometimes shocking look at the attitudes and motivations behind the movement through interviews with outspoken club-goers and band members of the Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Dead Boys.
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Guerillere Talks
Title: Guerillere Talks
Character: Herself
Released: January 1, 1978
Type: Movie
This experimental short consists of eight unedited rolls of super-8 film, each of which profiles an individual woman in real time. The women engage in everyday behaviour, such as playing pinball or reading a letter aloud.
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She Had Her Gun All Ready
Title: She Had Her Gun All Ready
Released: January 1, 1978
Type: Movie
Two women – one passive and resigned, the other aggressive and domineering – interact in various locations in New York city. The film explores the dynamic between them before ending with a showdown at the roller-coaster on Coney Island.