How does a no-budget filmmaker, once outlawed on the pretext that he glorified violence, hold sway in a changing world? The 3rd revised and updated edition of the book Sex Murder Art – The Films of Jörg Buttgereit will be published by Headpress in the UK in November 2026
Originally published in 1994, Sex Murder Art is the definitive account of the director’s work, filled with contemporaneous interviews and framed around the author’s visit to Berlin for the filming of Schramm. Unknown at the time, this ambitious psychedelic serial killer feature would prove Buttgereit’s last; at the age of thirty he effectively retired from making movies.
Revised and expanded, this new edition looks at the volatile era in which Buttgereit emerged, and the youth culture of a Berlin divided by the Wall. It questions how and why a no-budget filmmaker, once outlawed on the pretext that he glorified violence, can still hold sway as a cause célèbre. In the 2020s, the author David Kerekes returns to a very different Berlin for a new series of interviews, considers his own place in this changed world, and meets a fresh legion of Buttgereit fans while on a road trip to promote German Angst, an anthology movie of which Buttgereit is part.
Detailed analysis of Buttgereit’s feature films, plus the director’s early short film work, complement this comprehensive and illuminating study. Sex Murder Art remains the ultimate testament to the obsession, paranoia and politics of underground filmmaking.
SEX MURDER ART
The Films of Jörg Buttgereit (revised and updated)
Author: David Kerekes
Publisher: Headpress (UK)
Street Date: November 5, 2026
Special Edition Hardback only available from Headpress
Join us on Sat, May 23 for the Headpress 35th Anniversary Extravaganza – a day in Manchester of author talks and panels celebrating cult films and TV, weird music, and a Q&A with special guest Jörg Buttgereit.
