Art for Teachers of Children
With Caitlin Grace McDonnell, Duncan Hannah.
US, 1995, 16mm, black & white, 82 min.
When Jennifer Montgomery was in prep school, the then-teen future filmmaker had an ardent affair with teacher Jock Sturges, later infamous as the "art" photographer of pubescent boys and girls. In this narrative film, done in the style of an educational documentary, Montgomery recreates her very troubling relation with Sturges and also, years later, the odd aftermath. The FBI contacted her to testify against the photographer in a pornography case. Montgomery had to balance a chance for revenge against a repugnance about informing to the FBI. Also, she is a feminist who honors the First Amendment, and believes in foregrounding issues of sexuality in art. Montgomery’s ambiguities are all here in this thoughtful, certainly sexually provocative, work.