Monika Treut (born April 6, 1954, in Mönchengladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) is a German filmmaker. She made her feature film debut with Seduction: The Cruel Woman (co-directed by Elfi Mikesch), a film that explores sadomasochistic sex practices. She has made over 20 films, including the short documentaries Annie and My Father is Coming. Treut’s film work includes writing, directing, editing, and acting.
Education
Treut attended at an all-girls state high school.[citation needed] She studied literature and political science at Marburg University. After passing the state examination she graduated in 1978. In 1984, Treut earned her doctorate degree in philology from Marburg University.[citation needed] She wrote her PhD thesis about The Cruel Woman: Female Images in the Writing of Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.
Career
Known for her queer films, Treut also makes documentaries. Her subject matter varies from film to film, from one woman's efforts to help street children in Rio de Janeiro to about the culinary arts of Taiwan.
Throughout her career Treut has been involved in several aspects of filmmaking, including acting, directing, producing, writing, and editing. Her film catalogue includes over 20 films, both in her native language German and in English.
Early film career
During her studies at university in the mid-1970s she began working with video. She worked as a media associate in Marburg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.[citation needed] In 1984 she founded Hyena Filmproduktion together with Elfi Mikesch, and began producing, writing, and directing independent feature films. The following year Treut made her feature film debut with Seduction: The Cruel Woman, a film that explored sadomasochistic sex practices. Treut also spent time in America during the 1980s. Traveling and working in San Francisco and New York City, Treut met and worked with Annie Sprinkle and Werner Schroeter.[citation needed] These relationships led to the films Annie, My Father is Coming, and Encounter with Werner Schroeter.
Later film work
Of Girls and Horses[de] (2014) focuses on the relationship that develops between 16-year-old high school dropout Alex and upper-class Kathy at a horse farm. Alex works at a horse farm for a school internship, supervised by lesbian riding instructor Nina. In an interview for AfterEllen conducted by Marcie Bianco, Treut said she "wanted to picture this situation [of a queer teenager's insecurity] and find a way of coming out of it."
Zona Norte (2016) revisits Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, the human rights activist working with street children in Rio de Janeiro, 15 years after Treut's 2001 documentary Warrior of the Light. The film follows up on the lives and progress of the children from the previous documentary, who have now grown into young adults.
Her 2021 film, Genderation, is a documentary that revisits the subjects of Treut's previous film, Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities, 20 years later. The film looks at how the city of San Francisco has changed from being a hub for the LGBTQ+ community to being take over by gentrification and the presidency of Donald Trump.
In The Raw and the Cooked, Treut travels around Taiwan, exploring its culinary traditions and their relationship to the island's culture. The film also seeks out people who are attempting to create sustainable food system projects. The film had its world premiere in the Culinary Film section of the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2012.
In the edited book New Modern Chinese Women and Gender Politics, Ya-chen Chen contributes a chapter about Treut’s film Ghosted. Chen praises Treut for her ability to "exceed not only the essentialist restriction of physiology but also the corporeality that ghosts lose after deaths.” Chen also praises Treut's portrayal of a variety of different religions in China and their beliefs regarding ghosts.
Humanitarian work
Treut has been involved with "PROJETO UERE", an organization to help the street children of Rio de Janeiro founded by Yvonne Bezzerra de Mello, the subject of Treut's film Warrior of Light.[citation needed]
↑Chen, Ya-chen (2014). "Cinematic Visualization of Spiritual Lesbianism in Monika Treut's Ghosted: Countering the Essentialist Concerns about Li Ang's Literary Works". In Chen, Ya-chen (ed.). New Modern Chinese Women and Gender Politics: The Centennial of the End of the Qing Dynasty. Routledge.
