An audition for men aged between 16 and 99. There are no props nor make-up, just pure improvisation. All that is required is the willingness to engage openly with the topic and language of the words on the page. No small challenge, since the text in question is the scandalous novel published anonymously in 1906 “Josefine Mutzenbacher, or the Life Story of a Viennese Whore, as Told by Herself” which, as this film confirms, continues to be the subject of passionate and controversial discussions about desire, even today. What might be world-class pornographic literature for some is seen by others as an abusive depiction of child sexuality. In an intelligently arranged, experimental setting that permits analysis, emotion, reflection and intimacy in equal measure, these men transcend the boundaries of literary debate, opening up insights for us and for themselves into the cosmos of eroticism and sexuality – both within and beyond the confines of male fantasy. A cinematic experiment poised between imagination and identity that neither negates nor invokes its central taboo. For this reason it tells us a lot, not least about “#Me” as well as #MeToo.
