A controversial film about the late porn legend John Holmes can add the Independent Film and Video Festival to the controversy - critics are threatening legal action to stop Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes from being shown in a former Victoria convent.
The festival has set the first of two screenings of the film Feb. 5 at St. Ann's academy, but critics say that not only is the film about a porn star but the film itself is pornographic and inappropriate for showing in a former convent. Attorney Ronald McIsaac tells Canadian Broadcasting Company that if all else fails, he will seek a court order ruling the film obscene.
Festival organizers so far have sworn to keep the showing as scheduled.
The film's director, Cass Paley, says the uproar is "silly and absurd," estimating Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes has been shown a hundred times around North America - and usually to rave reviews. And he tells the CBC St. Ann's Academy is now a public building, and the film has the legal right to be screened there.
Holmes died of AIDS in 1988. His career as an adult film star inspired the film Boogie Nights. The telling of his story in Wadd, though, has inspired a pair of lawsuits from his widow, Laurie Holmes.
In December, Laurie Holmes sued former friend William Amerson over remarks he made about her in Wadd. She also, subsequently, sued online porn gossip Luke Ford and his Internet server for republishing the remarks on his Web site.
She sued Amerson for calling her "a hooker" in the film, citing a California law which makes it slanderous to say a crime which wasn't committed had been committed. And she sued Ford for knowingly republishing false and defamatory statements. The Amerson suit also named VCA Pictures, which made The Life and Times of John C. Holmes, as a defendant.
Ford posted the Amerson comments on his Web site in November. Another posting he made two months earlier brought him a lawsuit from another adult film star, Christi Lake. She sued Ford for showing photos of a woman having sex with a dog and saying the woman resembled Lake - who's known for her stances against bestiality. Lake gave Ford 48 hours to recant, then sued him a week after Holmes filed her suit.
