SANTA BARBARA, California.—After making the rounds on the art film festival circuit and getting some splashy big-screen exposure at events in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the critically acclaimed erotic movie Marriage 2.0 has gone to college. Specifically, it made its scholastic premiere at the University of California, Santa Barbara on Tuesday as part of Dr. Constance Penley’s class, “Topics in Film and Popular Culture: Pornography.”
The indie adult film, produced by LionReach Productions and distributed by Adam & Eve, was named Movie of the Year at the Feminist Porn Awards and Best Narrative at the CineKink Film Festival. Marriage 2.0 combines sexual performances by adult stars with a compelling story on the vagaries of love, lust and friendship.
“We feel honored to have Marriage 2.0 presented as part of an academic discussion on the impact of film and media," said Marriage 2.0 screenwriter and producer Magnus Sullivan. “Having a dialogue on a film like ours in a collegiate setting is an important step in showing the value of bringing together the worlds of erotic films and independent filmmaking.”
The screening was followed by a question-and-answer session with cast member Carol Queen, a sex and relationship expert and author.
“My class looks at the history of pornography, both as a film and its place in popular culture, as well as a genre and an industry. Because of this, I am delighted that my students will have the chance to see Marriage 2.0 and appreciate its radicalness in that history,” Dr. Penley said. “As a strikingly experimental cross of mainstream and adult, Marriage 2.0 redefines the cinematic possibilities of both.”
Dr. Penley’s major areas of research interest are film history and theory, feminist theory, cultural studies, contemporary art, and science and technology studies. She has penned several volumes on film, sex, pornography and feminism, and is the co-editor of The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure, with Tristan Taormino, Mireille Miller-Young, and Celine Parreñas Shimizu. Dr. Penley also serves on the editorial board of the newly launched peer-reviewed journal Porn Studies and is co-director of the Carsey-Wolf Center, which supports teaching, research, and public programming about media.
According to the UCSB Film and Media Studies course description, “[‘Topics in Film and Popular Culture’] approaches pornography as a major instance of film and popular culture, from the pre-history and history of cinema and video to the Internet and virtual worlds. Course content [is] augmented by guest lectures from the adult industry and academia.”
Written by Magnus Sullivan and directed by Paul Deeb, Marriage 2.0 features performances from adult performers India Summer, Ryan Driller, Dylan Ryan, Nina Hartley and Mickey Mod, along with appearances from internationally renowned sex and relationship experts, such as Emily Morse,Chris Ryan, Marcia Baczynski, Carol Queen and Reid Mihalko. The film follows a couple (India Summer and Ryan Driller) in an open relationship as they search for personal freedom, as well as emotional and sexual bliss within the context of an honest and committed modern relationship.
Marriage 2.0 is now available on DVD from Adam & Eve at AdamAndEve.com and other retailers. The DVD release includes 69 minutes of behind the scenes footage, including alternate takes of scenes, movie trailers, a photo gallery, animated chapter index and more. For additional information, visit Marriage2point0movie.com.
For Adam & Eve DVD sales information, email Donica Reardon at [email protected].
For Marriage 2.0 licensing information, email Peter Reynolds at [email protected].
