PHILADELPHIA, PA—Adult filmmaker Jean-Francois Davy, while not a household name in the USA, is a well-known figure in France as well as in erotic-film-loving Europe. Since the early 1970s and the beginning of modern porn, Davy has been making provocative, at times humorous, and always erotically-charged films that celebrate the womanly form in all its possibilities.
His film releases have not been limited to just porn house fare as several of his carnal tales have played mainstream cinemas and world-famous film festivals. Jean-Francois Davy is definitely not your typical adult filmmaker.
Artsploitation Films is proud to present two of Jean-Francois Davy's best films in one DVD set (and in selected VOD outlets), creating a cinematic bookend of his career. First is his latest work, the X-rated documentary Chasing the Muse (2014).
Coupled with this film is a new digitally restored Director's Cut of one of his early and most celebrated works, Exhibition (1974). Chasing the Muse (formerly titled Transgression) follows the now 70-year-old filmmaker as he travels through Eastern Europe in search of a new star for his upcoming feature.
"A savagely sexual documentary that honestly bridges the gap between art and porn," wrote TLAcult.com.
Exhibition was, on its initial release in 1975, a pornographic blockbuster (3.5 million admissions in France alone) and highlighted the Porno Chic craze when it was selected for the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Film Festival. The two-film DVD will be released on October 6, 2015.
The official trailer for Chasing the Muse can be found here.
After decades of filming his naked beauties anonymously behind the camera, Jean-Francois Davy turns his probing lens on himself as well in this penetrating documentary. Davy and his cameraman travel to the major cities of Eastern Europe—from Prague to Budapest, with stops in between—as he searches for a beautiful muse to serve as the leading lady of his next carnal opus.
As gorgeous young women undress to audition for the camera, Davy keeps looking for a girl with a special quality, and when he finds her in the juvenile and beautiful form of Kitty, he falls head over heels for her charms, her deep blue eyes, her lack of fear and her seductive gaze. A pure and honest account of this sexual encounter and the proceedings of this relationship where the author plunges into the film and uses his own body to reconcile cinematographic and sexual expression, sizzling and candid, Transgression is for mature audiences only.
Exhibition is Davy's most celebrated film. It was popular with mainstream cinema-going audiences (over 3 million admissions in France alone) but also rode the Porno Chic craze by being selected at international film festivals (and being the first porn film to play the Cannes Film Festival). It has become a classic in the DVD market although only in cut and poorly transferred versions.
The film is a documentary about the French porn industry and in particular, porn actress Claudine Beccarie. As the woman opens up about her painful childhood and her eventual entry into porn, scenes from her previous films, interviews with her fans, her co-stars and even her mother unspool. It's candid, sensual and stimulating.
Known as the grandmaster of French erotic cinema, Jean-Francois Davy (born 1945) has enjoyed a long career as a film producer, director, screenwriter, and actor. He achieved his biggest success with the pornographic cause celebrate film Exhibition and has continued his professional focus on film and sex for over 40 years. After making a series of short films as a teenager, Jean-Francois began in the film business when he became an assistant to director Luc Moullet on his 1966 comedy Brigitte et Brigitte.
Then he set out on his own by directing L'attentat (1966) and since then has directed 18 other fiction and documentary feature films. And quite unlike the styles of the French New Wave that was flourishing at the time, Davy staked his career on the adult market. Hence, his films (all of which he has produced) are mainly broad comedies and melodramas and filled with abundant nudity and love-making.
His films include Prostitution (1975), The Pornocrates (1976), Exhibition 2 (1978), and Exhibition 79 (1979). After more than two decades away from directing, Davy returned with the 2006 drama Red Needles and the 2009 film Tricheuse (So Woman!).
Artsploitation Films is located at 1639 North Hancock Street Suite 401, Philadelphia, PA 19122; their website is here.
