I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. de Sade
The Golden Penis -- the other Cannes Festival -- comes of age
By CYNTHIA DURCANIN
Photograph copyright © Agence "Star Flash" Cannes
Locked in a bitter custody dispute with ex-husband Jeff Koons, former flesh queen and member of the Italian parliament Cicciolina appears lost.
Mandelieu, France --
The ballroom of the posh French Riviera resort had all the trappings of the famed film festival across the bay. Limousines, bronzed bodyguards, paparazzi, men in tuxes with hair slicked back à la Karl Lagerfeld and plenty of buxom women dripping in sequins. As the star-studded crowd sipped champagne and dined on lobster, they swapped gossip about the antics of the "A-list" and dished about agents and difficult directors.Yet a quick glance at the films up for nomination -- "Buttman," "Buttman's European Vacation 3," "Dirty Debutantes" -- was the first tipoff that this was not the haute cinema of the Cannes Film Festival.
And the stars themselves seemed to be a bit, well, special. Elodie Cherie was in the running for best supporting actress for her role in "Desire of the Skin." A gentleman bearing the moniker Max Hardcore was up for "Cherrypoppers." And the legendary Italian screen stallion Rocco Siffredi was a best actor contender for his "Never Say Never to Rocco."
Welcome to the the Hot d'Or, more commonly known as the Penis d'Or -- the "other" Cannes film festival.
The Hot d'Or, which runs at the same time as its buttoned-up cousin, is Europe's leading erotic film fest. Now in its fifth year, the Hot d'Or seeks to upgrade the image of the adult film business and fight censorship. Last week, more than 1,000 industry players, and nearly as many journalists, attended the glitzy gala in Mandelieu near Cannes.
"It's a huge step of recognition for the industry," said Yann de Graval, one of the awards' hosts. "It's about respecting other people's fantasies."
Because the organizers wanted to keep it a class affair, T&A was kept to a minimum at the awards gala. But at a poolside luncheon the previous day it was no holds barred, as various stars strutted their stuff for a ravenous horde of photographers.
One rather plainly-dressed woman had every photographer this side of the Cote d'Azur scrambling frantically for their long lenses when she hiked up her skirt, revealing dozens of gold rings piercing every conceivable surface of her not-so-secret garden. With a swish of his hand, her manager shooed away the mob as if scattering a swarm of irritating flies, saying, "La boutique est fermé. C'est fini." And the starlet dropped her skirt as if on cue.
The pack quickly moved over to another star, Anna-Amore, who was frolicking on the beach in a lime green string bikini that made the famed Brazilian thong seem almost matronly.
"Anna, boobies please," implored one polite photographer.
"Higher Anna, higher, that's it, arch your back," instructed another.
After the shoot, Anna, a veteran of numerous trade shows, said, "Let's face it, this is not the Consumer Electronics Show. You get tossed out there if you show too much."
Working at a pace that would test the resilience of even the highest-quality bedsprings, Anna and her boyfriend/manager John Dragon, a Nordic-looking man with an Abbaesque haircut, have put out 56 films in 18 months. But the L.A.-based actress shrugs off her company's impressive horizontal achievements, saying, "These are one-day wonders. A big budget film, usually $50,000, might take a week, max."
Her favorite film to date is "So Bad." "It had a really nice food scene," she said. "It was basically a fruit scene. In fact, half the budget was spent on the food!"
When choosing a role, Anna says she looks for a script that has something to say. She speaks of "Anal Anarchy" as an example of a film with a meaning.
Reassuring those who might think the film was an epic saga about Montezuma's Revenge, Anna said, "It's a hippie movie that explores the beauty of free sex. The message is make love, not war."
As for Dragon, he's more concerned with production values: "The number one thing is how hot the sex is -- the look of it, the novelty of it. This makes or breaks a film. The competition is cutthroat, with more than 25,000 films produced in the U.S. alone. "
After a thoughtful pause, he added, "I prefer working in Europe. You can get away with much more here. In America," he said incredulously, "things like fisting and 'golden showers' are deemed violent."
The likes of Anna-Amore were quickly forgotten, however, when the celebrated Cicciolina made her entrance. Cicciolina, the Italian porn star turned politician, is probably the only porn star who has ever been described as virginal. It fits: with her flowing, snow-white hair, soft blue eyes and demure little-girl dresses, she projects a woman-child image that helped her become the first porn star ever to hold national office, elected to the Italian parliament in 1987 on her "Party of Love" platform.
As the porn queen moved through the frenzied crowd, she was exceedingly patient, almost regal, yet somewhat fragile. Beneath her shy smile one senses a broken woman.
In fact, Cicciolina is lost. She quit making porn five years ago, she's since left the chaotic Italian political arena and is now consumed by a bitter child custody dispute with her ex-husband, the notorious American artist Jeff Koons, whose artistic achievements included a lurid sculpture of himself and his then-wife in an X-rated pose.
When the horde of reporters asked, "What are you doing now, Cicciolina?" she was slow to answer and seemed to be searching. After an awkward silence she said she writes occasionally for Croatian newspapers about her thoughts on ex-Yugoslavia.
Perhaps prompted by a nearby porn star who was nursing her newborn infant, Cicciolina abruptly volunteered, "I have a broken heart. I feel as if someone put a big knife in my heart.
"I am a good mama," she said, casting her eyes downward.
She was asked if she will return to the screen. "In life everybody has to change sometimes," she said sadly. "This is not easy work and my ex-husband used to exploit me a lot."
At the other end of the pool, "Valentino," the Antonio Banderas of the industry, was holding court, effortlessly switching from French to English to Italian to Japanese. He was momentarily distracted when some super vixen's well-coiffed lap dog accidentally fell into the pool. Pandemonium ensued. Someone jumped in to rescue the terrier, who emerged resembling a wet rat.
Valentino, who has starred in more than 500 films, returned to his conversation. "It's a mindset," he said, clearly having forgotten the question.
Then, with a devious smile, he suggested, "If you really want to know more about the industry, come up to my suite and we can have a very personal discussion."
At the gala the following night, presenters wearing Egyptian headresses and white gowns stood guard by the coveted statuettes. A golden, life-size statuette of a winged woman clutching the "Hot d'Or" stood center stage.
As the awards got underway, one couldn't help but wonder what makes for a Palme d'Or in porn. Size? Camera angle? Plot?
According to Allan MacDonell, executive editor of Hustler Magazine, it's all in the remote.
"If the story is good enough to keep me from fast-forwarding to the sex scenes, then it's a winner," he said. One such film, according to MacDonell, was "Anal Palace" -- "sort of a supernatural thriller," he mused.
MacDonell does not attempt to convert those who find porn offensive. "People are entitled to their own opinion," he said. "But our position is that porn provides an important release for a lot of people. It can even help couples stay monogamous by introducing variety into their sex lives."
As for the trends in the adult film industry, MacDonell observed, "In the United States we're seeing a lot of combination action-sex movies right now." And -- in a predilection that perhaps reflects the grandeur of knighthood, the chivalric code and the noble history of feudalism on the Continent-- "castle movies are still very big in Europe."
After an audacious performance by drag queen ChiChi La Rue, the presenters took a moment to honor the pioneers of the industry, among them Francis Mischkind, who first brought banned Swedish films to France in the '60s, and Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who was extolled as a "freedom fighter" and a "living symbol of America."
As the ceremony wound down, host Yann de Graval delivered a final message of self-esteem and unity. "Yes, a lot of fast-food porn exists," he conceded. "But we are here to show the rest of the world that the people in this industry are not whores. We are hard-working people who care about producing quality erotic films."
Cynthia Durcanin is a Paris-based freelance writer.