SILVER LAKE, Calif.—It's been dubbed "Alt Porn," "Zog Porn," "Artcore," etc. It is not easily defined, but to paraphrase those infamous words of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, you know it when you see it.
It is that still fairly nascent breed of adult moviemaking propagated by such auteurs as JacktheZipper, Kimberly Kane, Eon McKai, Dave Naz and Vena Virago, and it serves as the focus of director Ramzi Abed's documentary The New Erotic, premiering this evening in a multimedia extravaganza kicking off at 8pm at The Department of Flying Vehicles (3303 Sunset Blvd., 90026).
"I didn't really have a real connoisseur's appreciation for erotica or porn, but back in 2004 my dearly departed friend Gidget Gein told me about this guy's films, and it was JacktheZipper," Abed told AVN. "He said, 'This is unlike anything out there, you gotta check it out,' and so I did, and that was sort of the door opener. I saw that there were these people who were true artists that just happened to be making hardcore, and in some cases softcore, pornography. And definitely, they had a voice."
Also crediting the real originator of the form, Andrew Blake, with spurring his interest to make The New Erotic, Abed professed that his primary objective with the film is to promote the work of its subjects.
"Most documentaries on porn usually have some sort of agenda, or hidden agenda, but my agenda is very clear: it's [that] these people are artists and there's sort of a movement that happened here," he said. "It's either still happening or it's over, but as far as I'm concerned, it's an art movement of some kind."
Abed mused that a commonality of each director profiled in the movie is, "They're all really kind of working within and outside of the system at the same time. I really equate them all to the same thing as any other artist or indie filmmaker, because it's a struggle for them to make what I think are superior products when the rest of the world seems to want the mediocre."
Expanding this correlation, Abed said, "They're the equivalent of, in the regular film world, Stanley Kubrick or David Lynch or Federico Fellini or Jean-Luc Godard. It's hard to use those big names against them, but for the medium of expression that they're working in, they are those people."
The New Erotic, which also profiles the work of Ed Fox and Alejandra Guerrero, will be released on DVD in late October by Halo-8 Entertainment, and Abed hopes to take the film on a theatrical tour in the months ahead.
The premiere party is open to the public for a $10 donation at the door, and will include a screening of the film, a gallery of art and photos by several of those profiled as well as noted erotic lensman Steve Diet Goedde, and live music by porn starlets Jayme Langford and Jana Jordan's glampunk combo Pajamaband.
