Nelly Kaplan, one of the most important woman directors to emerge in the European cinema of the Sixties (with A Very Curious Girl), and Stephanie Rothman, whose Roger Corman-produced exploitation film Student Nurses (1970) was called “a good example of the way in which a genre such as this can be subverted by a woman director” (NFT), take on two female-dominated but male-oriented genres, the pornographic film (Nea) and the vampire film (Velvet Vampire). Both are explored as to the implications of their old forms as well as their potential as forms of the women's cinema.

Nea
“Kaplan is distinguished from most other women filmmakers working today by her placement of sexuality as a central force in her heroines' lives and because her heroines are neither guilt-ridden nor masochistic. They play to win.... The problem of how to make a film in which sexuality is central without being exploitive is not resolved by Nea.... (However, despite) certain reservations, I think it is the most interesting new film to play the commercial houses in a long time....” --Amy Taubin, Soho Weekly News. Nea (the title is the feminine of “neo,” meaning “new”) is the story of an extraordinary 16-year-old girl, the daughter of a wealthy family, who is hard at work on an erotic masterpiece, material drawn from her active fantasy life, her voyeuristic expeditions about the family mansion, and extensive explorations of her own body. To further expedite the project, she begins an affair with her publisher, played by Sami Frey. When he betrays her (after the novel is published and becomes an enormous success), her revenge takes on hilarious proportions.