Anja Marquardt
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“Five Years Have Gone By and You Still Haven’t Made a Second Feature”: Anja Marqaurdt on The Girlfriend Experience, Season Three
At the Berlin International Film Festival in 2014, the German-born Anja Marquardt’s debut feature, She’s Lost Control, premiered to positive notices and went on to a healthy festival life. A fictional account of a graduate student (Brooke Bloom) doubling as a professional sex surrogate for men struggling with physical intimacy, the film represented a unique new voice on the independent film scene, ultimately netting Marquardt Film Independent Spirit Award nominations for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay. Several years removed from that film’s theatrical run, Marquardt has now taken on a project with similar themes but a much more […]
by Erik Luers on May 25, 2021 -
“For Every Kink, There is a Case”: Anja Marquardt on She’s Lost Control
The erotic meets the clinical in German director Anja Marquardt’s debut feature, She’s Lost Control, a quietly intense portrait of two characters brought together by deeply personal physical and internal deficiencies. Ronah (Brooke Bloom) is a graduate student doubling as a professional sex surrogate for men struggling with physical intimacy. The student faces the ultimate test when confronted with her most troubled patient, Johnny (Marc Menchaca), an imposing, solemn figure who needs an alcoholic beverage to get through each session. Those sessions — sequences that allow the leads to take real risks as their characters interact unsupervised — are set in darkened […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 19, 2015 -
Trailer Watch: Anja Marquardt’s She’s Lost Control
Opening March 20th at the Media Center in Dumbo is Anja Marquardt’s atmospheric debut, She’s Lost Control. Recently nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, including Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay, the film stars Brooke Bloom as a graduate student/sex surrogate who emotionally abandons herself to one of her more violent patients. At SXSW last year, where the drama had its North American premiere, I wrote that “Marquardt uses the untraditional avenue of sex surrogacy to explore the contradiction at the crux of her character study,” in portraying a woman who has trouble practicing the very intimacy she preaches.
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 3, 2015 -
SXSW Dispatch: She’s Lost Control, Wetlands, Frank
“I thought I was really onto something,” smiled director Anja Marquardt during the Q&A for She’s Lost Control. “I’d never even heard of The Sessions.” Peculiar profession aside, Marquardt can rest easy: the two films have little to nothing in common. Much more than a narrative quirk, Marquardt uses the untraditional avenue of sex surrogacy to explore the contradiction at the crux of her character study. Our subject here is not John Hawkes in an iron lung, but Ronah, a woman, a graduate student and a sex surrogate on the verge, played with disquieting charisma by high-waisted pant aficionado Brooke Bloom. More alone than […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 12, 2014 -
SXSW Trailer Premiere: She’s Lost Control
Following strong notices in Berlin, Anja Marquardt’s debut feature, She’s Lost Control, receives its U.S. premiere at this week’s upcoming SXSW Film Festival. The intense psychological drama, executive produced by writer/director Oren Moverman, considers the meanings and cost of intimacy through its focus on a professional sex surrogate. Premiering here at Filmmaker is the film’s newest trailer.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 4, 2014
