Kamikaze Hearts

San Francisco in the 1980s. Young director Tigr is trying to gain a foothold in the porn industry. In her film, a sex parody of the opera "Carmen", her experienced partner Mitch plays the leading role. After the final take, the women have sex with each other and talk about what the experiences on set have done to them and their relationship. Between toxic producers and drug excesses, the two try not to lose themselves as lovers.

In Juliet Bashore's queer film classic "Kamikaze Hearts", the boundaries between reality and fiction become blurred: Tigr and Mitch really were a couple and worked together in the porn industry; in the film, acted scenes alternate with documentary observations. The result is an unsparing portrait of an industry in which misogyny, abuse of power and intensive drug use were the order of the day - but also a self-reflexive, sex-positive and queer-feminist film about a passionate and all-consuming love.

Restored version by Kino Lorber in collaboration Outfest UCLA Legacy Project at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.