Just Do It! She-Punks from 1977 to Today

“Do it! Don’t talk about it. Do it!” Martina Weith, lead singer and saxophonist of Germany’s first all-female punk band Östro 430, summed up the movement’s radical practice with this simple demand. Decades later, the women who led pioneering bands like Mania D, Malaria!, and Kleenex are back on stage, decrying patriarchy, sexual repression, dogmatic feminism, and right-wing violence with the same electric fervor. Just Do It! traces the story of the women of German punk, innovators and provocateurs who fought equally as hard against bourgeois society as against the subculture’s macho tendencies.  

Featuring interviews with musicians like Weith, Gudrun Gut, and Bettina Köster, Reto Caduff’s nervy documentary looks back on the contradictory gender dynamics within the punk movement and these women’s triumphant fight to plant their own black flag within it. 

Streaming as part of Alle gegen Alles: Punk@50. By 1976, the once underground punk movement had exploded across the world, bringing with it a bold new style, an anti-establishment ethos, and a powerful do-it-yourself means of political and personal expression. Fifty years later, this collection of films celebrates punk rebellion in Germany and its enduring role as an antidote to modern conformity. Watch for free through December 31.

Image © Salzgeber