Mutzenbacher

For more than a hundred years, the novel "Josefine Mutzenbacher oder Die Geschichte einer Wienerischen Dirne" (Josefine Mutzenbacher or The Story of a Viennese Maid) has been the subject of controversy because of its lustful portrayal of childish and female sexuality. Published anonymously and attributed for many decades to the Austrian writer Felix Salten ("Bambi"), it was at times banned and at the same time celebrated as world-class Viennese literature. With a newspaper call, Ruth Beckermann invites people to a casting for a film based on the well-known pornographic novel: "Men between 16 and 99 wanted". The film MUTZENBACHER confronts one hundred readers with excerpts from the work in a former casket factory in Vienna. And as in real life, the reading of "offensive" passages evokes memories, erotic imaginings, but also rejection reactions, distancing and justification strategies on the film set. We live and love in a time when sex is more ubiquitous than ever, but at the same time encounters a morally highly upgraded environment.