Reveals the extreme measures lawmakers and critics go through to censor avant-garde artists, who walk the fine line between art, perversion, religion and devious sexual behavior.

Oddballs dancing, leering at camera, guy shaving a nontraditional part of his body and man ripping his own throat out, woman stabbing herself to death.

This 60-minute documentary profiles a fascinating group of independent American artists working in various media -- including print, film, graphic art, performance art and music -- and explores their methods and motivations. Features interviews with Ian MacKaye (Fugazi), Jim Rose (Jim Rose Sideshow), Jim Thirwell (Foetus), Lydia Lunch, Mike Watt (Minutemen), Ron Asheton (Stooges), Madagin Shive (Bonfire Madagin) and many others.

New York in the late 70s: the arch, anti-establishment energy of CBGBs punk spreads like a virus through the East Village art scene, with hipsters as likely to pick up a cheap Super-8 camera as a guitar or saxophone. A number of eager collaborations between filmmakers, musicians and performance artists are spawned, and a scene tagged No Wave evolves, with the likes of Jim Jarmusch, Lizzie Borden and Susan Seidelman emerging from it. On into the 80s, and contempt for Reaganite conservatism inspires Nick Zedd's Cinema of Transgression Manifesto, proposing, among other things, 'to go beyond all limits set or prescribed by taste, morality or any other traditional value system shackling the minds of men'. The likes of Richard Kern, Lydia Lunch and Casandra Stark enthusiastically sign up. Celine Danhier's authoritative, thorough account of post-punk underground filmmaking in NYC celebrates a time and place where there were no rules, and where artists were encouraged and supported by their peers, those peers being, essentially, their audience. Contributions from key players are numerous and fascinating, as are the clips from the seminal, hugely influential work they produced.
Michael Hayden