NEW YORK CITY—There are porn film festivals and there are porn film festivals, but we suspect there's not been anything like the 2016 New York City Porn Film Festival, scheduled for this weekend, June 4-5—and we sure as hell wish we could attend!
The festival's philosophy is fairly simple: "The festival is committed to bringing the best and most diverse body of work to New York City as a platform for both established and emerging talent," the festival's website offers. "We aim to give credit to adult film as a significant and socially/culturally relevant art form. We are an open submission porn film festival, so we invited everyone & anyone to submit their creations to premiere their work to the industry and general public. The festival will present how emerging, hip, tech savvy producers engage their audiences through these new technologies, as well as, showcase innovative ways of working in porno."
Beyond that, "We maintain a particular interest in the coincidence of strong sexual taboos and high rates of pornography consumption," noted Robert J. Choi, the festival's managing director. "For example, research done by PornHub revealed that U.S. states with stronger sexual taboos experience higher rates of pornography consumption in general, and particularly of fetishes. Notwithstanding the existential prohibitions it faces, isn't pornography in fact ubiquitous? It's in advertisements, photographs, social media, media, and what's banned is a mere matter of degrees. So I think the willingness of the Festival to explore these kinds of sociological phenomenon is why we attract creatives and artists such as Daddy."
Feel free to click on the link, but "Daddy" is a band created by multi-talented performer James Franco and Tim O'Keefe, and an "erotic video" they created for a remix of their song, "I'm A Sword Swallower," will be screened at the festival, involving, according to Sandra Song of PaperMag.com, "a strange threesome involving a masked man (who is likely Franco, though his camp is keeping it mysterious) with two women who are naked save for a couple strap-on dildos," plus, "There's a lot of flesh and shots of Franco getting cut with a razorblade." That will be shown at 7:45 Saturday evening, along with a film by Amalia Ulman, International House of Cosy, about the filmmaker's "research into the boundaries of authenticity and consumerism [taken] to the extreme."
The festival's title sponsor is tube site PornHub, but the many talks that will take place during the two-day affair are courtesy of adult e-tailer Adult Empire (AE), which will be projecting its logo on bodies and walls in 3D throughout the weekend. They'll also be presenting two custom-built "sex booths," built to resemble the glory-hole-filled arcade booths of old—but these booths will each have a computer for online ordering of AE's products.
Beyond that, AE is particularly proud to sponsor the festival's "Porn Of Tomorrow" lecture series, as well as a VIP party for media, exhibitors, academics and talent on Saturday night, starting at 11 and going into the wee hours—and the thing will be hosted by Ron Jeremy!
The festival opens on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. with a free screening of some of the video artists' submissions curated by a panel that includes Dr. Annie Sprinkle, UK "obscenity" attorney Myles Jackman, MakeLoveNotPorn's Cindy Lee Gallop, and others. Some of the shorts presented will be Ms. Naughty's Dear Jiz, Leah Shore's BOOBatary and Vijay Patel's Coming Out.
At 12:30 p.m. will be a "Women In Porn—Empowerment Through Performance" panel curated by Katie Rex that will "explore the importance of pornography in feminist culture and its positive affirmations in the lives of the performers and viewers." Topics will include "breaking into the industry, dominant/submissive roles, interpersonal boundaries between performers, personal missio within the porn industry, and the future of porn."
Sunday morning will kick off with "PIRACY!" curated by gay porn star Dale Cooper. He'll present clips from piracy-related porn films including 1977's Captain Lust, Wendy Crawford's Pirate's Booty (2009), Joone's Pirates! and ... Bruce LaBruce's The Revolution Is My Boyfriend?
Also up for Sunday is "Bike Smut," a mini-film festival in its own right that combines sex and cycling. This year's theme is "Science Friction," and will include such sci-fi-related porn topics as "interracial alien orgies, power-tool wielding lesbians, Mexican post-porn saddle squirting, polybikesexual queer trans babes armed with dildo flamethrowers, hunting for a mate in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and time traveling sex missionaries."
One of the festival's big draws will likely be "The Golden Age of Porn," hosted by Ron Jeremy and little-seen actress (and Al Goldstein personal assistant) Gerry Visco, which will take place Sunday at 5 p.m.. The discussion will include a showing of the 1977 film Joy, which starred Sharon Mitchell, Gloria Leonard, Clea Carson and Veri Knotty.
Those are just some of the interesting segments that will comprise the NYC Porn Film Festival. The full schedule can be found here, and tickets to the show, which will take place in the heart of Brooklyn, can be purchased here.
