After going public with their relationship, both received recognition and approval, but also a lot of criticism. Some believed it to be a marketing stunt, others insisted on a strict separation of work, art and private life, or even called them “perverts”. Critics questioned their morals and decisions: How can Georg call himself a feminist if he wants to dominate his wife? How can an African-American woman voluntarily accept such a submissive role? The story is told without narrator or expositional commentary. Instead, friends and colleagues, but especially the protagonists themselves get their say. They talk about their different origins and childhoods, their difficulties in self-acceptance, their life struggles and shame, but also about their art, self-discovery and their journey towards radical self-expression.

THE ARTIST & THE PERVERT centers around the couple’s lives and their radical self-definition over the course of a year. During this year, Georg Friedrich Haas’s work Release premieres at the opening of the grand Elbphilharmonie. Together, the couple works on Mollena Williams-Haas’s Hyena, a piece of storytelling and music dealing with her difficult journey towards sobriety. Furthermore, they make up for their lost honeymoon, and Donald Trump is elected president, which throws the two into a crisis of fear and bewilderment. Georg believes he has left behind the fascism and the Nazis of his childhood when he moved to the United States, while Mollena fears that this president will create more racial tensions and deaths. Other scenes include the couple’s daily activities like composing, eating, kinky activities, and going on a walk.

THE ARTIST & THE PERVERT is a movie about the relationship of an African-American woman and a white European man, about BDSM and New Music, about racism and sexuality, politics and power structures, prejudices and the (sometimes) distorted awareness of others.

But THE ARTIST & THE PERVERT is also about self-acceptance and partnerships, dedication and passion, art and life, feminism and self-determination. And above all, it’s a movie about love.