One of the most strikingly individual talents to emerge in the realm of art cinema in recent years, Los Angeles-based Anna Biller makes movies that revel in kitsch, while simultaneously commenting on it. Imagine the camp of John Waters and the erotic excesses of Russ Meyer, blended with the satirical blasphemy of Luis Buñuel and the deliberately awful performances found in the films of George Kuchar, and you have an idea of what Biller is after.

Her first feature, Viva (premiering in the Dryden on April 5), is the story of a woman’s discovery that follows Barbi (played by Biller herself ), a suburban housewife in 1972 who’s abandoned by her race-car-driving husband. Barbi finds herself at the center of the swinging sexual revolution, and is introduced to the joys of bisexuality, nudist colonies, pornographic modeling, and prostitution. A send-up of the vintage sexploitation movie that also manages to seriously explore contemporary and personal issues of sexuality, Viva will be preceded by Biller’s short film, A Visit From the Incubus, a deliriously entertaining horror-Western-musical.

Biller is the complete auteur: she not only writes, directs, produces, and stars, but also edits, composes music, and most important, designs her own sets and costumes. Eye-poppingly vivid and sometimes shockingly, deliberately grotesque, Anna Biller’s work is something special to discover. She will appear in person on April 5 to present her films and answer questions following the screening.