TEACHES OF PEACHES Documentary

Winner of the Teddy Award for Best Documentary at this year’s Berlin Film Festival and named for the infamous turn of the millennium album by iconic Canadian musician, producer, director and performance artist Peaches (née Merrill Nisker), Philipp Fussenegger and Judy Landkammer’s rousing and rollicking documentary was shot during “The Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Tour” in 2022. The film covers her 30-plus year career as a fearless cultural disruptor, from her days as a schoolteacher in Toronto, to her time as a cult star in Berlin, to her life today as a queer woman in her 50s who refuses to stop challenging every expectation about the role of women in the music industry. Fussenegger and Landkammer combine glorious archival material with a banging soundtrack (in every sense of the word) and candid interviews with Peaches, her collaborators, lovers and friends, including Leslie Feist, Chilly Gonzalez and Shirley Manson. TEACHES OF PEACHES is the rare music documentary that has it all and still leaves you wanting more — a bit like Peaches herself, whose gutsy originality, biting wit and unstoppable optimism continue to take a wrecking ball to social norms and patriarchal power structures – showing no signs of slowing down. This inspirational and supremely hopeful deep dive into the life and ethos of a counter cultural, LGBTQIA+ icon is a must for fans and soon-to-be-fans alike. –Abbie Algar