Just a mile down the coast, an alternative festival takes place at exactly the same time, a sort of flip-side, bad-brother mirror image of the mainstream event: rather less glamorous, certainly more sleazy, unquestionably more infamous. It's the Hot d'Or, the porn industry's answer to the Cannes Film Festival, complete with its own (legendary) parties, its own ceremonies, its own awards. Held in a large, anonymous hotel complex that is patrolled by legions of swarthy security guards in low-rent tuxedos, the Hot d'Or is an impressive testament to the power of an industry that is growing at a phenomenal rate. And I mean phenomenal. In Los Angeles alone, 10,000 porn movies are made every year, making more than $4.1 billion in 2000.

Hollywood would kill for that kind of success. A couple of more years like that, and the Cannes Film Festival will be just a sideshow to the real event down the road. Forget Bruce Willis. We'll all be lining up for Lexington Steele, one of porn's biggest stars, and proud owner of a 16-inch-long penis.

Steele, in fact, was one of the contenders in last year's Hot d'Or awards. I forget exactly which category he was up for -- was it best orgasm or best anal-sex scene? -- but nobody really cares about the awards. Half the (non-French) contenders have a problem pronouncing the name of the town they're in, and none of them has a clue about French toilets, but this matters not a jot. What matters is that they're here, and to be here at all is a sure sign of success. It's a long way from the San Fernando Valley to the South of France, and the fact that somebody is prepared to send you there at all means ... well, it must mean something.

I first came across the Hot d'Or while making a film for the BBC about the Cannes Film Festival. I'd spent an afternoon in the bowels of a building called the Bunker -- a hideous hunk of concrete that looks like a nuclear bomb shelter but is actually a center for festival screenings. Somewhere in those neon-lit, air-conditioned depths, the porn companies had set up shop. A lot of overweight, middle-aged men in drip-dry shirts scoured the 100-odd booths buying and selling porn movies. The thing about this industry is that it conforms exactly to expectations. It may be a zillion times wealthier than its mainstream cousins, but that doesn't stop all the guys from having fake Rolexes, fake hair and fake I.D. bracelets (to match the gals, who are having fake orgasms).

I'd been told that the Hot d'Or itself -- the actual ceremony -- is actually very boring. The food is terrible, the prizes endless, plus it is all in French. As with the Oscars, which it parodies, the thing to do is to get invited to one of the parties. And by far the best, the ritziest, the most outrageous party of the lot is supposed to be the one on-board the biggest yacht in the Cannes marina, hosted by the most successful porn company on the planet: Private.

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