The Humorless Ladies of Border Control: Touring the Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar

The story of musician Franz Nicolay's journey around the world meeting artists, neo-nazis, and punk rockers along the way. In Humorless Ladies of Border Control, Nicolay explores the past and present of what it means to be a punk rocker in post-communist world of adversity. In 2009, musician Franz Nicolay left his job with the Hold Steady, aka “the world’s greatest bar band.” Over the next five years, he crossed the world with a guitar in one hand, a banjo in the other, and an accordion on his back, playing the anarcho-leftist squats and DIY spaces of the punk rock diaspora. He meets Polish artists nostalgic for their revolutionary days, Mongolian neo-Nazis in full SS regalia, and a gay expat in Ulaanbataar who needs an armed escort between his home and his job. Nicolay explores the past and future of punk rock culture in the post-Communist world in an unforgettable, funny, and sharply drawn depiction of surprisingly robust hidden spaces tucked within faraway lands. (Short Discount)