
Courtesy of Aïda Ruilova
“In the early ’70s, Kathy Acker performed at live sex shows on 42nd street at the club Fun City. She was in her twenties, and supporting herself through sex work. It changed her understanding of gender and power relationships, and had a profound impact on her work. Her boss was Marty Hodas, infamously known as ‘the king of porn,’ who was recently depicted on the HBO show The Deuce. In an early journal, Acker writes about being stuck in the club during a black out in Times Square, and Marty not letting anyone leave. She writes, ‘After four shows mostly lousy… half of 7th avenue blacked out… but of course we can’t leave in case the management can make another 5 bucks out of us.’ Here is Maya before we shoot her entering through the club past the dancer on stage.”

Courtesy of Aïda Ruilova
“We shot the stripper scenes at the club Satin Dolls in Times Square. Four AM call time. There was a very small window of shooting time since those places like to stay open, keeping the dollars pouring in. Kathy Acker grew up on Sutton Place, and she went to an elite private school on the Upper East Side. She wore a uniform every day, which is why Maya wears one here. I had imagined a young Kathy in a dream sequence, reading in the club. She was a voracious reader, studying Greek and Latin. Alas, these scenes above didn’t make it into the short film.”

Courtesy of Aïda Ruilova
“Maya is holding a journal that is a painstaking facsimile of one of Kathy’s original journals. The art department did a beautiful job. I love this object; it sits with a prized pile of books on my bedside table. Handwritten on the cover are different lines Kathy wrote: The color of raw velvet; Jane Eyre II; The Black Tarantula 1973; I become a child; Freud Kant Russell.”