AllMovie

In this low-budget German documentary, filmmaker Monika Treut profiles Norwegian-born actress-sex therapist Eva Norvind. Born in 1944 as Eva Johanne Chegodayeva Sakonskaya, daughter of a Russian prince and a Finnish sculptress, she studied in New York and was penniless when she traveled to Mexico during the '60s. As Eva Norvind, she found roles in Mexican "B"-movies (Tonight No, Jan Pistoles, Blood Pact), dropped out of sight, had a daughter, and returned to NYC to study film at NYU. Her S&M experiments put her in a dominatrix mood, and she launched her own company in 1987, promoting her $300 sessions on TV ("out of the dungeon and into the classroom"), moving on to embrace academia and criminal psychology before adding explorations into religion and philosophy. Interview subjects (Eva, a psychiatrist, family, friends, film associates) are seen in a video-to-16mm transfer. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival.