The Producers

Lance Kruger:
Lance Kruger is co-director, co-producer, and editor of Waking Aphrodite, a documentary film that premiered at the 2007 Silverdocs: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival. Together with his filmmaking partner Sarah Gonser, Kruger most recently directed and produced "The Ghosts of John Jay High," a short film broadcast by WGBH and PBS World. He is now in pre-production on a film about a child raised in the South Bronx by drug-addicted parents during the corrupt and crime-ridden 1970s. Born and raised in Nevada, Kruger has lived in Brooklyn, New York, since 1995.

Sarah Gonser:
Sarah Gonser is co-director and co-producer, along with her filmmaking partner Lance Kruger, of Waking Aphrodite, a documentary film that premiered at the 2007 Silverdocs: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival. Most recently, she and Kruger directed and produced "The Ghosts of John Jay High," a short film broadcast by WGBH and PBS World. Together with Kruger, she is now in pre-production on a film about a child raised in the South Bronx by drug-addicted parents during the corrupt and crime-ridden 1970s. Born and raised in Switzerland, Sarah Gonser has lived in New York City since 1992.

Quentin Jennings:
A composer, engineer, and producer, Quentin Jennings has been creating music professionally and helping others sound good for twenty-five years. Born in England, he has lived in New York City since 1999. Jennings has written music for TV, advertising, theater, and several independent films. He plays guitar, bass, and piano and is a member of several New York City bands.

Making The Film

In deciding to make a documentary film about her mother’s work as a sex teacher, Sarah Gonser, and her filmmaking partner Lance Kruger, originally intended to start a dialogue about what it means for women to live sexually free lives. As shooting progressed over the period of a year, it became clear that Gonser’s mother–passionate, warm, and highly opinionated–was reaching a critical "curve in the road" as she described it. On the one hand, she busied herself with teaching women about sex. Yet, at the same time, she was discovering her own overwhelming need to conform to powerful societal ideals of beauty, womanhood, and sexuality. Her world was cracking open. As it became clear that she was struggling just as much as the women in her workshops to make sense of her life and her role in the world, we realized our film was about much more than women and their right to control the when, where, and how of their own sexuality. Waking Aphrodite was originally a film about women seeking their inner sex kittens. During our year of shooting, and during the months of editing that followed, we realized it was about one woman's struggle to move beyond the world of sex and into a world of love and selflessness.