The Mexico Erotic Festival kicked off its first year with the kind of event organizers sincerely hope doesn’t become an annual tradition: the arrest of five participants during the show on Friday, July 30.
According to a report released by the Festival, Nacho Vidal, Rita Faltoyano, Katsumi, Claudia Clair and Jane Darling were expelled from the country and fined approximately $3600 in U.S. dollars for matters related to doing business on tourist visas. Local law enforcement officials responded to an anonymous tip by picking up the group, telling them their presence was needed to clear up a routine bureaucratic matter. The organizers claim the group was then held for 27 hours in lice-infested quarters without food or usable bedding, wearing only the clothing they had on at the time they were picked up.
Although the incident may have been a black eye for the show, the detainees contacted by AVN.com seemed to take the matter in stride. “She’s in Los Angeles for the day, and will be back in Europe very soon,” said Katsumi’s agent Mark Spiegler. “It was simply a political problem between whoever’s running the show and someone else down there.” Spiegler believed that his client was actually held less than one day.
Public Relations head Hatman from Evil Angel told AVN.com that he didn’t even know Nacho Vidal, a contract director at the studio, was attending the first-year Festival. “I thought he was in Brazil.” Hatman said that although he knew nothing about the specific incident in question, a misunderstanding may have developed from the fact some performers and directors will shoot movie scenes in different countries using a holiday visa.
The detention and subsequent expulsion was an unexpected setback for the Festival organizers, backed by the group also responsible for Spain’s popular Barcelona Erotic International Film Festival, soon to celebrate its twelfth year. The Mexico Erotic Festival was designed to expand the presence of various adult entertainment industries in Latin American markets, partly by drawing on the relative proximity to performers and businesses in Southern California. In a statement to the press, the Festival announced its intention to pursue the matter with government officials through an inquiry via the Spanish embassy in Mexico.
