LIVE NUDE GIRLS UNITE!
Dir. Julia Query and Vicky Funari, 2000
USA, 70 min

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
DIRECTOR JULIA QUERY IN PERSON

ONLINE TICKETS HERE
FB EVENT HERE

No contract, no pussy.

“My knees are killing me” a dancer purrs to the camera in a sultry voice, capturing the irony of the strip club. Part of a dancer’s job is to look like she’s having fun, but stripping is hard work even in the best conditions, and at the Lusty Lady peep show, the conditions are anything but: no job security, rampant discrimination against women of color, and an unsafe working environment.

After a particularly harrowing incident involving a violent patron and an indifferent response from management, the dancers at the Lusty Lady voted to form a labor union. LIVE NUDE GIRLS UNITE follows the dancers’ organizing efforts: hiring a lawyer, negotiating a contract, and debating whether or not to strike.

The film is co-directed and narrated by Julia Query, who was part of the workers’ bargaining committee. Query injects a warm humor into the narrative, also weaving in her complex relationship with her mother, a public health advocate known for her extensive outreach with street-based sex workers. Julia is hesitant to tell her mother that she works as a stripper—until Julia’s organizing leads mother and daughter to present at the same conference on prostitution.

Part of the series: SEX WORK IS WORK, which also brought you WORKING GIRLS in July. SEX WORK IS WORK is an ongoing benefit series exploring sex work in film, programmed in protest of the SESTA/FOSTA law. All proceeds from this event will go to Lysistrata Mutual Care Collective and Fund.