The Marquesa
Karen Young, director.
Canada, 1996, video, 60 min.

This is a personal portrait/documentary of Rachel, a dominatrix who lives and works in Toronto, and whose professional name is The Marquesa. In order to begin to understand the complexities of this unusual woman, one must be able to grasp a basic understanding of the SM culture to which she belongs. The SM community has its own etiquette, its own set of rules that must be learned: it is dependent on communication.

This video is a portrait in the sense that it is a representation of Rachel's personal ideology over a certain length of time. One of Rachel's main concerns is the need for awareness of safety standards in SM play: she speaks on panels and gives lectures based on this concern. Many aspects of her ideology are shared and further contextualized by her colleagues and friends. The object of this piece, through Toronto's leading authorities on the subject, is to help people understand SM culture through intelligent, critial analysis and visually complelling documentation of this intriguing subculture.

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