This year's Outfest, the largest film festival in L.A. and the largest gay film festival in the world, contained even more adult film involvement and entries than ever before. In fact, a whole section of the festival was labeled "For Adults Only" and catered predominantly to gay erotica, with involvement of some of the biggest names in gay video.
Perhaps the most exciting technical achievement of the festival was when the Delta Productions editing team showed The Heyday of Jaguar at a Laemmle theater and it became the first fully-digital showing of hardcore porn (gay or straight) in history.
"This is really a moment in history, and the theater management was very cooperative in helping us out," said Brian King of Delta Productions. King is also the director and cameraman of many of the classic adult videos in the Jaguar collection.
Still very active in the world of adult video, King said it was a fluke that they had the chance to show the video on the $150,000 piece of digital equipment, because the digitally-shot An Ideal Husband happened to be playing at the theater at the same time. "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and other films have been shot digitally, but very few theaters have projectors that show the film properly, and it makes a big difference," King said.
The packed audience of 230 people at the midnight showing was one of the Outfest highlights.
"Audiences cheered and whooped during the screening for their favorite trailers," said King. Some of them were campy, some were explicit, some were melodramatic. "It was an event!"
Kingdom Cum was a segment hosted by Wash West, who invited guests into a comfy home setting where West took viewers on an odyssey of his work. From Squishy Does Porno, his explicit short, he went on to explain how he helped make porn less boring as he swept the GayVN Awards two years ago with Naked Highway. He also showed clips from Odyssey's upcoming Technical Ecstasy and All Worlds Video's Animus. He was charming and delightful as audience members asked him questions about his guerrilla porn-making. He was honored in Brazil and at other gay festivals around the world, and was recently included on a list of filmmakers to watch. He's now seeking financing for his mainstream film The Fluffer.
"I had a great time doing this, and the audience response was remarkable," West said after the first screening. "I'm so happy to see how many people from the industry also came out to support me - it was very nice."
Director and sexpert Allan Gassman got a big boost of support when showing his documentary The O Boys: Parties, Porn, & Politics to two packed audiences. He narrates the fast-paced documentary of safe sex education and shows the ongoing activism and some sneak peeks into the private orgies for the hottest men in Los Angeles since 1990.
"We have had a lot of fun bringing our message out to the world, and I think this is getting us a lot more exposure than anything we've ever done," said Gassman, who showed clips from the O Boys' appearance on The Phil Donahue Show and other news shows.
Dallas Taylor, Johnny Rey, Vince Harrington, Giorgio Falconi, Marshall O Boy, author Jill Nagle, activist Michael Callen, playwright Robert Patrick and many others are also in the documentary, which is being shown in Montreal, Brazil and many other festivals around the world.
Afterward, at a local club in West Hollywood, the O Boys threw a party where a secret back room orgy was going on. "With all this passion and activism shown in this movie, if I throw a party and it sucks, then I'm a fraud," Gassman said.
Bruce LaBruce came from Toronto to bring his Cazzo Films explicit work Skin Flick that All Worlds Video will distribute. The filmmaker of Hustler White and Super 8 1/2 said this was the toned-down version, but the film still has explicit blowjobs, hard cocks and lots of full frontal nudity, as well as LaBruce's usual brand of twisted humor and crude jokes.
"It's great to work directly for a porn company who put up the money for the film - I had a great cast that nobody knows, and they're very handsome men," LaBruce said after the screening. "We almost got in trouble in a few areas when neighbors protested."
Some of the adult industry crowd ticket holders included longtime Outfest supporter Bob East from Odyssey, who came to support most of the adult-themed films. Directors Jim Steel, Thor Stephens, Drew Warner, Anthony Rose; editors Dan O-rama, Kevin Glover; make-up artist Eddie; porn stars Alex Carrington, Dino Phillips, Sweet Williams, Will Clark, Eric Evans, Spike, Max Grand, Mason Flynt, Richard Reyes; agents Johnny Johnston, Giorgio Falconi; reviewers Alan Mills, John Erich, Austin Foxxe, Hank Ferguson, Jordon Sable, Joey Dillus, Robert Sumners, Marlon Brandeis, Billy Masters and many others were schmoozing and rubbing shoulders with stars such as Gus Van Sant, Tori Spelling, Bruce Vilanch, Alexis Arquette, k.d. lang and many others.
Other adult-related films in Outfest included:
Alley of the Tranny Boys, directed by Christopher Lee, the first feature-length porno starring a full cast of female-to-male trans men; \nThe Velocity of Gary, about a bisexual porn star who contracts AIDS; \nLola and Billy the Kid about a macho hustler in a Turkish subculture; \nTrick, about a love affair between an exotic dancer and a guy who wants to write musicals; \nCan I Be Your Bratwurst, Please, directed by Rosa von Praunheim, a short about new boy Jeff Stryker who little suspects how hungry his new neighbors are; \nBeefcake, a documentary of photographer Bob Miser, with Joe Dallesandro and Jack La Lanne giving testimonials; \nThe Cocksucker Film, Bareback, Hose, Hell for Leather, Forever Bottom and Bed, that have explicit themes, too.\nOutfest managers said they will continue to have representatives of the adult industry in their program.
