The Sex Film Project - Shortbus

[MacGuffin]

A sex buzz arrives on `Shortbus'
Source: Los Angeles Times

CANNES, France — There's usually a film here that kicks up dust with boundary-pushing sexuality. In 2003, it was "The Brown Bunny," which included a graphic oral-sex scene that writer-director and star Vincent Gallo took great pains to tell everyone was real, not staged.

This year's provocateur is "Shortbus." And it has everyone buzzing.
 
In one scene, a man is lying in a tub of water making a video of his, um, privates. In another, a naked young man belts out "The Star-Spangled Banner" while engaged in three-way sex with gay lovers.

And in still another, a sex therapist walks into an underground sex club in New York and into an orgy. The "mistress" of the club, in one of the film's most memorable lines, tells her: "It's just like the '60s — only with less hope."

Whether it's viewed as art or not will, of course, be up to the audience, but writer-director John Cameron Mitchell, whose previous film "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" attracted critical attention, doesn't see his latest work as pornographic.

"I actually like pornography, but I don't consider this film pornographic," Mitchell told a festival news conference over the weekend. "I define — and most people do — pornography as devoid of artistic intent. The purpose of pornography is to arouse. I don't think anyone got [sexually aroused] watching this film."

That's not to say he didn't intend the sexuality to excite. "There is a certain provocation we had in mind with this film, but more important than that, we wanted to use sex as a metaphor for things that were, perhaps, universal, themes like connection and love and fear. We just thought the language of sex could be used the way the language of music could be used in a musical."

And the film is not just about sex. It is also about relationships, such as the character James, who is suicidal and quietly preparing his lover for his death, and the dominatrix prostitute Severin, who takes Polaroid photos of strangers captured at their most vulnerable moments.

Sook-Yin Lee, who works for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., told reporters that there was initially "confusion and fear" when her bosses learned about the movie, but she said they eventually supported her choice to play the character of Sofia, the sex therapist, who is wildly experimental in her exploration of the terrain.

"It was fascinating to me to see all my individual bosses up the corporate hierarchy, and each individual would say, 'You know what? This movie sounds amazing, and I want this movie to exist in my world, but I'm afraid the guy above me will put on the brakes and I'm going to get in trouble.'

"Their fear was the fear that the public would be outraged, that we would be talking candidly about our sexuality.... What happened was, in reality, the backlash was people ... saying, 'This should exist. This should happen.' "

The young cast includes Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker, Jay Brannan, Peter Stickles and Justin Bond, all of whom attended the news conference, which was relatively friendly. Not like the boos and hisses that greeted Gallo at his.

One of the bigger laughs occurred when DeBoy responded about how it felt to sing the national anthem while having sex.

"It was a hard decision ... within me of what that meant," he said. "The beautiful image of gay men having sex is a very personal thing to me, and I am an American, and I think that it represents who I am as well and how I express myself.

"So when I thought to myself, 'Can I sing my country's national anthem while [having sex]?,' I decided I could. Because I think it is a patriotic act ... and I think there is nothing morally wrong with gay sex or un-American about gay people."

DeBoy joked that they'd be touring "and singing every country's national anthem."

The film may have people talking, but it doesn't have a distributor yet.

[MacGuffin]

'Shortbus' has a driver
ThinkFilm gets rights to explicit pic
Source: Hollywood Reporter

NEW YORK -- John Cameron Mitchell's comedy-drama "Shortbus," which features scenes in which actors engage in actual sex, has parked itself at ThinkFilm. The indie company has picked up North American rights to the feature, which premiered Out of Competition at last month's Festival de Cannes.

The largely improvised film explores the lives of seven straight and gay New Yorkers seeking an emotional connection with one another. The sex is presented as one part of the characters' complex lives, which intersect at the Bohemian salon Shortbus.

ThinkFilm plans to give the $2 million "Shortbus" a platform release in the fall, eventually bringing it to specialty theaters across the country. But the unrated film's several sexually explicit moments present a marketing challenge.

"TV sales are out, and it probably can't be sold at Blockbuster or several other chains," said one competing distributor, whose company was a final contender in the negotiations to acquire the film. That distributor, who declined to be named, bowed out when, he said, the filmmakers sought a $500,000 price tag for North American rights.

Nevertheless, a number of indies expressed interest in the finished film, for which the filmmakers spent more than a year raising financing. "We had 11 other offers on the table, including video companies who would allow us to use the advance for a service deal and a pay cable network we're continuing to talk with, who may talk to ThinkFilm about licensing TV rights," said Mitchell, directing his sophomore feature after the 2001 musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." "Then we were getting calls from studio specialty divisions wondering why they were out of the running."

While Mitchell said the divisions eventually got cold feet over the content, execs from two of those companies said they had the go-ahead from their corporate parents to pursue the movie but that the economics of the deal didn't make sense given the high price tag and limited revenue streams.

According to sources close to the production, ThinkFilm, Magnolia, IFC Films and Roadside Attractions in conjunction with Netflix were the final contenders.

"ThinkFilm just kept coming at us and had the best offer," said Mitchell, though the filmmakers declined to specify how much the company offered. According to Mark Urman, head of ThinkFilm's theatrical division: "We all saw it together, and were unanimous about it. It's quite groundbreaking, and we were all impressed with how natural and normal and comedic the extreme sex became without being offensive."

Urman doesn't appear daunted by the marketing challenges. "Maybe we won't take TV ads," he said cheekily. "I'll save money." He plans to release the film as soon as possible. "There'll be enormous pre-awareness, and once you let the cat out of the bag, that cat should be allowed to prowl," he said.

Mitchell pointed to several alternative marketing strategies, including a "virtual salon" Web site where people can upload their films, music, art and literature; a competition for "best performers"; and "Shortbus"-themed salons and concerts at colleges around the country.

The film has been sold to more than 20 international territories, which producer Howard Gertler said will cover the film's budget.

The deal was announced by ThinkFilm president and CEO Jeff Sackman with producers Gertler, Mitchell, and Tim Perell of Process. It was negotiated by CAA on behalf of the filmmakers, and by executive vp acquisitions and business affairs Randy Manis on behalf of ThinkFilm.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

[SiliasRuby]

and that is how you sell a high class porn film

[MacGuffin]

Sex film "Shortbus" finds distributors world-wide

Hard core sex in a mainstream movie? No problem.

Three months after John Cameron Mitchell showed his sexually explicit film "Shortbus" out of competition at the Cannes film festival, he said it had attracted distributors in dozens of countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, France and Singapore.

"People are ready for change. There is a thirst for something different," Mitchell told reporters on Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival, where "Shortbus" was set for its North American premiere before an October opening in the United States.

Mitchell aims to use sex as a metaphor to tell a story about people looking for solace and searching for something more in their lives in a post-September 11 world.

"What pissed me off was that it was ... generically identified of as porn," Mitchell said of his film. "We are not trying to do anything salacious here. That is just the language which we speak."

The film is graphic: Scenes include a man being whipped by a dominatrix as he masturbates and a straight couple having sex in a variety of positions.

But pornographic? Mitchell argues not.

"Porn is really to arouse. This film explores the other areas of sex," he said.

The story revolves around two couples, one straight and one gay, accompanied by a few other lonely souls.

One couple seeks counseling from a sex therapist, played by Sook-Yin Lee, who works for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. as on-air host of a show about popular culture.

It turns out Lee's character has never experienced an orgasm, which leads the couple to invite her to a salon called Shortbus, where everything goes -- from group sex and voyeurism to cabarets.

Lee said there were initial reservations at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. about her being in the film.

"Once they were re-educated, they allowed me to do this movie," she said at a press conference.

"I don't know if I would have been able to do this if I was working at CNN."

[grand theft sparrow]

Longer, uncensored, somewhat explicit trailer here.

[w/o horse]

The reviews are getting me really excited (!)

[MacGuffin]

'Shortbus' steering clear of controversy
Source: Hollywood Reporter

It's got sex, lots of sex. In fact, the whole movie is about sex and, from the start, was conceived to test boundaries. But as John Cameron Mitchell's sexual opus "Shortbus" readies to roll into movie theaters next week, it hasn't hit any speed bumps. The media might have reflexively dubbed the movie controversial -- Google the words "controversial" and "Shortbus" and 46,500 references appear -- but the real surprise surrounding the movie is that it hasn't provoked any genuine controversy at all.

Since ThinkFilm, its distributor, is not an MPAA signatory, the ground-breaking movie is being released without a rating, but even that potential stigma hasn't prevented it from buying advertising or securing theater bookings.

"We've booked the film in the top 40 major markets without incident or obstacle," ThinkFilm's head of U.S. theatrical Mark Urman said. "It's been screened everywhere: press screenings, trade screenings. Everyone knows what the film is. It's fair to say that the horses have not been frightened."

Three years in development, "Shortbus" is Mitchell's self-proclaimed sex project for which he auditioned actors, professional and nonprofessional, who were willing to tell stories about their sexual experiences. He turned some of those stories into the script, which revolves around a group of young New Yorkers who navigate the intersections between sex and love in and around an underground salon called Shortbus. Mitchell, the director of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," asked a number of the actors to trust him as he filmed them in actual sexual encounters that figure in the movie's story line.

In May, the film bowed at the Festival de Cannes, where it was met with a warm reception. The first wave of reviews on RottenTomatoes.com was running 56% positive Thursday. ThinkFilm will open the film exclusively Wednesday in New York before expanding to Los Angeles and San Francisco on Oct. 6.

Urman said the film will primarily play in Landmark theaters. "The company has been a great fan of the film since Cannes. They are our full partners on a national basis," Urman said. "We're only choosing to not play Landmark theaters where there is a better theater geographically."

Landmark's head film buyer Ted Mundorff agreed that he was sold on the film at Cannes. "It was the best film I saw in Cannes and a perfect fit for Landmark," he said. "Our customers certainly know John Cameron Mitchell, and I think this will be the high point of his career."

To reach out to Mitchell's more cutting-edge fans while not alienating mainstream media outlets in the process, ThinkFilm devised a dual track campaign. For example, it created two posters. The one intended for general audiences shows the smiling cast, clothed, sprawled on the ground together -- Internet commentators have compared it to happy, shiny posters for such TV series as "One Tree Hill" and "Beverly Hills, 90210."

A second piece of key art, designed for use in alternative weeklies and gay publications, takes a more provocative pose, with the same cast shot framed by a phallic outline.

Additionally, the indie film company created three trailers: a teaser, a theatrical trailer in which Mitchell describes the back story of how the film came together; and an uncensored version, which includes brief glimpses of the naked couplings. And to ensure it doesn't trigger any unintended outrage, ThinkFilm plans to keep the film out of traditional multiplexes where it could offend anyone who encountered it unawares.

While the distributor isn't hiding the film's subject matter, it isn't flaunting it, either. And, for the moment at least, that appears to have inoculated it against controversy.

"It is surprising to me that (that there's been no controversy). We have over 20 runs on the film as it rolls out across the country," Mundorff said. "The Southern locations generally may be the theaters where community groups become more active. But we haven't had any push back at all from any community at this point."

"Shortbus" isn't the first serious-minded film to attempt to put real sex onscreen. French director Catherine Breillat, with an assist from Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi, ventured into explicit filmmaking in 1999's "Romance," while British director Michael Winterbottom took two actors through a series of intimate encounters in 2004's "9 Songs." But those films, playing to art house audiences, flew below the cultural radar -- while "Romance" grossed $1.3 million domestically, "9 Songs" had to settle for only $67,000.

Mitchell, on the other hand, is likely to garner a good deal more attention. A denizen of New York's East Village scene, he might not be a household name. But thanks to "Hedwig," which earned a sizable cult following -- first as a stage show, then as a film that grossed $3.1 million domestically, and then on video -- Mitchell has developed an ardent fan base, which he is courting with "Shortbus." And, so far, nobody is raising any objections.

[Ghostboy]

I saw it today. It's got it's problems - some clunky exposition and character development at the beginning - but overall it's good. John Cameron Mitchell has this wonderful way of weaving pathos and humor together into a single intrinsic emotion, and it really makes the film effective. I had tears in my eyes at the end, and the woman sitting next to me was openly crying.

[modage]

Riding the Shortbus
Source: ComingSoon.net

John Cameron Mitchell, the filmmaker behind the Sundance favorite Hedwig and the Angry Inch is back, and his latest movie Shortbus is all about sex. Or that's what you might be led to believe, because the real sex between Mitchell's little known actors is a big talking point of his new movie.

Really, it's a drama/comedy about a group of New Yorkers, gay and straight, who come together to deal with their sexual issues in a New York salon called "Shortbus," where art and music collide with a non-stop orgy that anyone can watch or participate in as they wish. The characters include Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee), a sex therapist who has never had an orgasm herself, and her clients, a gay couple (Paul Dawson, PJ DeBoy) whose sexual problems lead them to thoughts of introducing other people into their sex lives.

It's a pretty daring endeavor, one that not everyone will get, let alone like, but it's certainly the less safe route for Mitchell to take after making a rock musical. CS Indie spoke with the cutting-edge director about the whys and wherefores of Shortbus.

(Warning: Because Shortbus is an NC-17 movie about sex, anyone uncomfortable with frank discussions about sexuality may want to find something else to read here on ComingSoon.net.)

CS: The actors mentioned that you didn't have much of a script, but what you did have, they didn't see that much and you let them improv a lot. How much of that is true?
John Cameron Mitchell: Well, you know, I wrote the script from the material of their improvs. No, they saw it a great deal. It's just that I asked them not to learn the words verbatim. The way we rehearsed was the same way we shot, which was we would read a scene, discuss whether it made sense, made some adjustments if it didn't make sense for their characters, and then they would sort of do it from memory in their own words. Then, if they missed some beats, I'd tell them and sometimes there'd be full improv, but it was always in their own words, even when we were shooting.

CS: But it wasn't so much about cutting and stopping if they messed up, but just keep going as much as possible?
Mitchell: Yeah, we did a lot of things over, but we kept rolling. We shot much more footage than most films.

CS: How long was this process in terms of how long ago did you decide you wanted to make a movie that addressed the issues of sex?
Mitchell: During Hedwig times, I was like "Hm, what might be next?" Hedwig started with a formal decision like "Oh, rock 'n' roll and theatre musicals, can they come together and still keep their authenticity?" and the same was like [with this], "How do I use sex in a film? I've seen a lot of people using it lately, but I'd do it differently." So it was purely formal first, and then it was, "Oh, if we're going to do sex, the actors will probably feel the most safe if they create their own characters." It really started more as an esthetic exercise. I just got around to the audition part at the beginning of 2003, and we shot two and a half years later.

CS: When you were auditioning people, did they know that the movie was all about them having real sex?
Mitchell: Yeah, we had an audition website that discussed what we were trying to do. It was a long process. I did a lot of press to publicize the website because we didn't have any money, so I'd call L.A. Weekly and ask if they could do an article on this and mention our website, it might be an interesting article for you, and then in the website, it discussed what we were trying to do esthetically, and just talk about giving sex... it's a coat of many colors and I'd only seen porn or French movies, which usually ended in castration. It seemed that there was more in between those two things. So they knew what it was up front, and they also knew that they would be creating their characters.

CS: What went into the decision when striking the balance between same sex and heterosexual sex?
Mitchell: It was really more that's the world I live in, it's pretty mixed and it seemed interesting to keep it varied. That's just the circles that I live in. There's a certain Bohemian New York that I wanted to explore to, and it seemed in some ways the best of New York in my view. Naturally, Justin Bond, who is sort of a reigning figure in that seemed to be right to be the reigning figure in the salon. Also, I wanted to challenge audiences of all kinds to see something maybe they weren't used to seeing outside of pornography.

CS: Has anyone asked you about the Woody Allen influence on this movie? The mix of comedy and sex seemed to mirror some of his earliest films.
Mitchell: Yeah, that was in the website, too. I talked about filmmakers who would be influences on this film, and "Annie Hall." I mean the pure schtick, yeah, I mentioned Woody Allen, I mentioned Cassavetes, Albert Brooks a little bit...

CS: A lot of directors when they do sex scenes, they do it on a closed set, but you have a huge group scene in the movie. Was that just everyone taking off their clothes and doing whatever they wanted?
Mitchell: It was, actually. (laughs) It was arranging them and saying, "Do whatever you want," keeping cameras far away. Obviously, there's some dramatic moments in those scenes where the woman sees the beautiful couple and there's some contact. There's things that have to happen, but as far as the "sextras," they were really preexisting couples who could do whatever they want. I actually jumped in for the last shot, just because it was my Hitchcock moment. (laughs) There's a shot of me in there, and there's another shot of me in another scene actually performing oral sex on a woman for the first time. I was dared. I was pushing myself, just like the actors were.

CS: Do you ever have any fantasies of the "Shortbus" environment taking on a reality and existing or does it already?
Mitchell: Well, there was a salon. It was an amalgamation of salons I'd been to. There was one, the guy who plays Creamy, the guy in the sex room with the brownies and the condoms? He had a salon called Cinesalon that was a cinema salon that he would only play 16mm films in his house. He served brownies and food, and there'd be sex later in the evening, which wasn't really my scene. I'm not really a group sex person, but I was just fascinated at this buffet of art and sex. I was going to this salon for a year, like every week, so that was much more interesting than what I imagine Plato's Retreat was, which was Jersey couples coming in for a non-artistic transgressive experience. I differentiate the salon from sex club, which is only sex, a salon which equates all of these important things in our lives: art, food, drink, society, politics and sex. They all are to be tasted. I think it's a healthier way to present it than just a pure sex environment, because that can be a little bit, sometimes catered to addiction more because it's just one thing? Certainly, people have used it in a healthy way. I've just never felt that a bathhouse, for example, is a very comfortable environment. You're not allowed to laugh, you know what I mean? Maybe in the Bette Midler days, when she was doing a show, and there was dinner and then there was sex, that seemed kind of more balanced.

CS: Were you trying to harken back to the days of Andy Warhol's Factory a bit?
Mitchell: I was interested in Warhol as a boundary breaker, but I never got a warm and fuzzy feeling from The Factory. It just seemed so harsh and mean and more connected to fashion. They were anti-hippies in a way, and this is closer to a post-punk hippy vibe, if you know what I mean, and it's not so much bent on fame. He was really just trying to create his own Hollywood, and I don't like Hollywood. A lot of the films were formally interesting like "Blow Job" and those are just cool, great ideas, but I don't ever want to see them again. It's like superstars who all ended up with a needle in their arm. The "Shortbus" world is not riddled with drugs. There's certainly desperation at times and you need to connect, but it doesn't quite have that same relentless self-promotion needed for fame and the whole drug thing. I've seen it and I'm just not interested.

CS: Where did safe sex come into play while making the movie?
Mitchell: It is mentioned actually. Whenever there's a couple that's not a long-term couple, there's a condom if there's penetration i.e. the sex room, he offers her condoms and when the boys have a three-way, there's a condom passed from the lover to the lover, but except for that encounter, all the sex is actually pre-existing couples, in fact long-term couples or that's implied. At least in the sex room, and in fact, they're all played by long-term couples in that room. Again, I guess you see tropes of certain things in a New York film like this, like drugs and smoking. A lot of [the decisions] were just made on pure economics. If one of the actors wanted to be dealing with HIV, we probably would have gone there. All the actors decided what their characters' emotional arc was, and for example, Sook-Yin, when she was growing up, she was very afraid of her body, and I exaggerated that into a non-orgasmic woman, so I would have followed whatever journey they wanted to go on. Just HIV didn't come up, though we were very careful when shooting. All the leads were tested, and obviously, you can't police everyone every step of the way and get them tested every week, so at a certain point, I said, "Whoever is having sexual contact, we want you both to discuss it and both feel comfortable about what you're doing." So it really came down to that.

CS: What about the National Anthem scene? Who came up with that? (Note: You'll just have to see the movie to find out more details on that.)
Mitchell: Well, we were doing a sexual improv with the three of them. Someone started singing and that was interesting, and everyone who's participated in such sexual activity knows that when there's vibration down there, it's very interesting. I'm sure it's the same with oral sex with a woman. I wouldn't know. I didn't sing when I did it. It was just funny and then I was just like, there really should be a song that is somehow germaine to the scene, and to be honest, the first thought was, "Well, the Star Spangled Banner is public domain so we don't have to pay for the rights." But then it became politically germaine. We started [the movie] with the Statue of Liberty, and it seemed like a nice new way to be patriotic again. Because I am patriotic.

CS: Is it true that they cheered that scene at Cannes?
Mitchell: They did. I don't think it's happened since 1945.

CS: Have you covered all you've wanted to cover on sex or is there more to come... so to speak?
Mitchell: With "Hedwig," stylistically experimenting with drag and musicals with rock 'n' roll, there's elements of that in "Shortbus" and I'm sure there's elements of what we learned from "Shortbus" that's going to be in other things. My next thing is a children's film so it won't have any sex in it, but I won't be as afraid of it, I don't think. But you're always thinking about budget, and the financers in a way kind of welcome the explicit sex, because that is the star. Budgetarilly, you have to think about where the movie is going to play, that is why the film is very low-budget. A hundred million dollar film, no one's going to give us the money if there's real sex in something like that because they can't figure out how to get their money back.

CS: Is this children's movie an original story or something based on a preexisting book?
Mitchell: It's an original story. I was working on this and that at the same time. It's definitely a children's film, for adults too, that will be unusual. I like to play around with form, and this is about a little boy that's never been told a bedtime story, and there's an animated world. It's called "Nigh."

CS: Have you ever been tempted to call up Michael Winterbottom and trade war stories about making a movie featuring real sex?
Mitchell: Well, I met him and I invited him to a screening, and I wanted to talk about it. It was like at a party and he said he'd try to come but never did. Sook-Yin and I ran into Vincent Gallo in the subway, and I was like, "Hey, I'm actually making a film with real sex, too." And he said, "Just don't star in it or they'll come after you." And then he got off on the next stop.

Shortbus opens on Wednesday, October 4 in New York.

[samsong]

this seems like it should've come before hedwig.  it has the energy and passion of a freshman attempt but all the mistakes.  the missteps are sometimes unbearable, but the peaks made me want to forgive them more than i should--there's no writing this film off.  its flaws are the kind you'd expect from a film as viciously personal as this one.  the scene with the former mayor of new york and the ending... jesus.

[Ghostboy]

I interviewed John Cameron Mitchell the other day, and one of the most intersting things he talked about was the Mayor character. I'll have it online sometime next week. It was a great conversation, except that he was eating lunch throughout it.

[Pubrick]

It was a great conversation, except that he was eating lunch throughout it.

and not sharing

[modage]

this seems like it should've come before hedwig.  it has the energy and passion of a freshman attempt but all the mistakes.  the missteps are sometimes unbearable, but the peaks made me want to forgive them more than i should--there's no writing this film off.  its flaws are the kind you'd expect from a film as viciously personal as this one.  the scene with the former mayor of new york and the ending... jesus.

i think you're making fun of me, but this may well be a reasonable review. 

[clerkguy23]

This is definitely one of the best films of the year. Everyone go see this.