Background

Does the female have a different feeling for the erotic than the male? Question the wise men on university faculties, and you’ll get a myriad of answers. But turn the query around and ask if women directors make more erotic films than their male counterparts, then the Erotic Tales are a sure measurement. Two films in the first dozen were made by women: Susan Seidelman’s The Dutch Master (USA) and Cinzia Th. Torrini’s Sweeties (Italy) - although the initial goal at Ziegler-Film was to look for parity. All the same, this duo fared well on the international circuit: The Dutch Master was invited to participate at Cannes and received an Academy Award Nomination, while Sweeties was honored with the Golden Rockies Award at the Banff TV festival. Look closely at those films - both focusing on the sexual needs of women - and arguments can be made for the aesthetics of feminist cinema.

Now comes Susan Streitfeld’s The Summer of My Deflowering in the second cycle of Erotic Tales. The director of Female Perversions (1996), one of the most controversial feminist films ever made, Streitfeld is familiar with all the issues at hand. “It was difficult to find an actress to play the lead role of the calculating- woman careerist,” she admits in an interview. “Until Tilda Swinton came along - and resolved the issue with a magnificent performance.”

In The Summer of My Deflowering the focus is on a young woman who believes that her video-diary, begun as a child, should close on note of absolute finality - the loss of her virginity. Once she has cruised the Internet for the likely beau, it’s off to the Garden of Eden motel in the Hollywood Hills to consummate the affair before a running camera …

Synopsis

Los Angeles, 2000. Megan David likes to keep track of her life with a camrecorder. It’s her video-diary, her art project for the Biennale. It depicts who she is, where she’s going, how she’s going “to pop her cherry“ – as she informs her girlfriend. And hip video artist that she is, Megan has even picked out the right partner through the Internet - a theology major named Luke - for the summer of her deflowering at the Garden of Eden. But when the love-birds arrive on the motel, the concierge hands them the key to their room on a condition - they are not to eat the apple ...