THIRD WORLD VIDEO INHERITS RAGE COLLECTION

New York-based Third World Video has acquired the distribution rights to one of the prize gay porn catalogues - the Christopher Rage collection, in its entirety.

The Rage collection includes such renowned gay porn films as Raunch, Toilets, Manholes and My Masters, titles unavailable for several years. And the change of distributorship means putting the collection into well familiar hands - Third World owner Frank Ross has known the gay porn business, from director and videographer to performer (in Arch Brown's The Night Before) for a quarter of a century.

He formed a lifelong friendship with Rage when they worked together in the mid-1970s. When Rage began his own video company, Live Video, Ross came on board and directed two titles, Scum and Lovers, which he was in the midst of shooting when Rage died. For four years, Ross served as vice president of Live Video and then left to start his own project. The result was Third World Video.

"Third World was originally the name of a line of videos that I shot that was supposed to cater specifically to ethnic tapes - Asian lines, black tapes. But when those fell by the wayside and I was looking for a name for my company, I felt that Third World Video could be read many ways and would be perfect."

TWV features a wide variety of fetish material that has been successful within the confines of the small company. "We have a small but loyal mailing list," Ross said. Producing and directing his own innovative, non-mainstream, avant-garde raunch videos, fetish titles range anywhere from fisting to watersports, spanking to scat. "We fill a small niche," Ross said. "But it's a niche people can't seem to get enough of."

Videos are available through mail order only - there are edited and unedited versions of several titles, some edited for general market release.

In addition to exclusively distributing the Rage library, TWV distributes other fetishist dreams: Jack Stone's infamous Wet series, offbeat European kink, R&R Productions titles (Ross and porn star Donnie Russo's company) and other examples of unusual erotica that break through the boundaries of sexual exploration.

Ross also directs three to four titles of his own a year. Concentrating primarily on working with non-professionals, Ross states, "I like working with the raw energy of real guys. I find that much more interesting than watching pretty porn boys being told to suck dick or whatever. Real guys know what to do."

For more details, TWV can be contacted via e-mail at [email protected]; Phone (212) 243-2772 or fax (212) 627-2461; or call toll-free (888) 827-3077 for catalog information.