Kembra Pfahler
Birth : 1961-08-04,
History
Kembra Pfahler is an American filmmaker associated with the Cinema of Transgression, a performance artist, rock musician, and film actress. She is mostly known as the lead singer of the glam, punk, shock rock band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, and for the often nude and sexual nature of her art exhibits.
In Tromaville, three women warriors find themselves on the run and kicking in the teeth of every misogynist that dares to cross their path.
In 2007, 11 years after one of the most influential American punk bands, Jawbreaker, called it quits, the three members, Blake Schwarzenbach, Chris Bauermeister, and Adam Pfahler reconnect in a San Francisco recording studio to listen back to their albums, reminisce and even perform together one last time. Follow the band as they retell their "rags to riches to rags" story writhe with inner band turmoil, health issues, and the aftermath of signing to a major label. Featuring interviews with Billy Joe Armstrong, Steve Albini, Jessica Hopper, Graham Elliot, Chris Shifflet, Josh Caterer and more.
Sister Kembra
In Ger(wo)many, when an army of radical females is preparing for a final revolution and a utopian world without men, a young male soldier arrives seeking refuge at the convent.
Herself
The Advocate for Fagdom unites the puzzle pieces one by one. Testimonies are combined with rare archive images. Art galeries present movie extracts that are succeeded by images shot on location. And the other way round. Writers, film makers, art galeries owners, actors and actresses, photographers, producers, friends and loved ones all join in a game of interpretation, analysis or simple anecdotes. John Waters, Bruce Benderson, Harmony Korine, Gus Van Sant, Richard Kern, Rick Castro and others deliver their impressions, theories and confessions. Everything blends into the fascinating portrait of a singular person blessed with singular talents. A complex personality at war not with a system but all systems. The portrait of a man constantly moving between his punk attitude and extreme sensibility.
Herself
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.
Lascivious Ballet Dancer #3
A young zombie named Otto appears on a remote highway. He has no idea where he came from or where he is going. After hitching a ride to Berlin and nesting in an abandoned amusement park, he begins to explore the city. Soon he is discovered by underground filmmaker Medea Yarn, who begins to make a documentary about him with the support of her girlfriend, Hella Bent, and her brother Adolf, who operates the camera. Meanwhile, Medea is still trying to finish Up with Dead People, the epic political-porno-zombie movie that she has been working on for years. She convinces its star, Fritz Fritze, to allow the vulnerable Otto to stay in his guest bedroom. When Otto discovers that he has a wallet that contains information about his past, before he was dead, he begins to remember details about his ex-boyfriend, Rudolf. He arranges to meet him at the schoolyard where they met, with devastating results.
Self
Disinfo.Con contains an amazing 4 hours of footage from The Disinformation Company's massive counterculture event in New York City's Hammerstein Ballroom. New York hadn't seen anything like this since the Nova Convention in 1978 which saw Frank Zappa, Patti Smith and others anoint William Burroughs as king of the counterculture. A quarter century later Disinformation's keynote speakers Richard Metzger and Douglas Rushkoff ushered in a dizzying, day-long array of performances ranging from sword-swallowing to sanskrit chanting, interspersed with lectures and conversations with counterculture luminaries like Mondo 2000 founder R.U. Sirius, industrial music progenitor Genesis P-Orridge, Grant Morrison, Robert Anton Wilson, theorists, performance artists and others from the extremes of popular culture. Nothing beats actually experiencing an event like this in the flesh, but this DVD comes pretty close to capturing the spirit of the counterculture as we lurch into the 21st century.
Blackie Rockaway
Grey Gardens meets the Warriors. Two sisters are orphaned by drunks and are left to fend for themselves. One of them disappears into the sea, and the other forms a gang, The Rockaway Ruffnecks, New York City surfers. They run afoul of a local mob boss, and go on a violent odyssey intermittently giving way to fantasy surf sessions.
Gang Girls 2000 neatly parodies the tough girl roughie genre of the 60's and 70's. When a legendary Brooklyn gang, the Sluts, invade their turf, the Lower East Side Glitter Girls are hell-bent for revenge. But a clandestine visit to Chinatown for supplies runs them afoul of the Blades. Next thing they know, things escalate into an all-out rumble at Coney Island!
Gay erotica from director Charles Atlas.
A series of close-ups of real urban 'types' in which the camera is returned to its Edison-era status as a simple recording device.
Debra
A vain, self centered mother competes with her daughter in the world of carnivorous men and sleazy movies.
Visitor/Sitter/Therapist
Complete strangers meet in a room to act out their sexual desires.
A short film by Steve Doughton.
Kembra Pfahler and The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black perform live at CBGB's on Friday the 13th. Introduction by Hollywood Goddess Karen Black.
Prostrate probing interviews! Live action murder! Naked people! Tired death-rockers! And more! Much more!!
After a vengeful sorceress is tortured and killed by a corrupt industrialist looking to harness the spectral powers of Red Spirit Lake, her niece arrives in snow covered Angel Falls to settle her aunt's estate.
A woman's vagina is sewn shut.
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the story finds a handful of ragged survivors attempting to communicate with dolphins, while another cadre of survivors have made it their crusade to destroy all the world's religions.
Paul Mills is a miserable, lonely man leading a meaningless existence in a nameless city and has visions of the Spirit of Death waiting to collect him while having encounters with various people while seeking solace for his short life knowing it will end soon
Director
Kembra Pfahler's contribution to the 1980s downtown performance art movement
