Cinekink Presents:
A Comstock Films Double Feature at New York’s Pioneer Theater
MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY (2002)
DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER (2006)
Director (that’s me) Q&A to follow
DATE/TIME: December 11, 7PM
SCREENING LOCATION:
Pioneer Theater, 155 E. Third Street (@ Avenue A), NYC
Admission: $10; $6 seniors/students; 18+ only.
AFTERPARTY LOCATION
China, 150 Avenue B (@ 4th St.), NYC
Did you miss the New York and San Francisco screenings of DAMON AND HUNTER, and all the other fun/sexy films in the Cinekink Film Festival? We’ll if you live near Portland, OR, you’re in luck!
DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER
Best Doc, 2006 Melbourne Underground Film Festival
Offical Selection, 2006 Sydney queerDOC, 2007 New Zealand OutFest, 2008 Torino LGBT, 2008 Tel Aviv LGBT
Cinekink Film Festival, Passion Plays Session
Clinton Street Theater
Portland, OR
November 2, 9PM
$6 at the door
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not dead. They are alive, and apparently they are living inside our film, DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER. SARA SCHIERON, of the San Francisco Bay Guardian:
“Almost a brother film to WebCam Girls [another film playing at CineKink], Damon and Hunter: Doing It Together is a short feature nested in the Passion Plays Program (Fri/19, 9 p.m.). For the women of WebCam Girls, the issue of individualism is essential (Anna Voog makes Rorschach-inspired videos for her word-association songs, and Ducky Doolittle puts on fashion shows), but Damon and Hunter are like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: porn stars with protected identities as opposed to global brands. Primarily composed of one talking head interview with the two lovers, director Tony Comstock’s documentary intercuts a XXX scene that is more sweet than erotic. The footage feels deliberately contrary to a porn aesthetic, giving the impression that we’re observing, with anthropological so-called neutrality, the well-worn sex life of a couple. One partner asks, “Are you comfortable?” and the request for consent is like a demonstration of love.”
I’ve never seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but I have seen Hamlet, twice. Still, I have no idea what Ms. Schieron is talking about. To tell the truth, I’m not even sure if this is a good review or a bad review, and it makes me feel a little slow-witted. At any rate, apparrently reports of Rosencrantz’s and Guildenstern’s deaths are greatly exaggerated.
Reports that DAMON AND HUNTER is a great date movie are not. If you’re looking for romantic evening out in San Francisco this weekend, you could to worse than DOING IT TOGETHER.
Friday, January 19, 9:00PM
Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts
701 Mission St @ 3rd
415.978.ARTS (2787)
So last night was it, the big hometown premiere of DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER, and I will not deny that I was both excited and nervous at the prospect of our film playing in a theater in front of a New York audience.
First let me tell you what wasn’t so great. Something was goofy with the theater’s video projection equipment, and the color rendition for DAMON AND HUNTER was a dark, muddy green version of the film’s true colors. It fairly well changed Damon’s ethnicity, plugged up the shadows in the sex footage, and gave a slight purplish cast to the jism. DAMON AND HUNTER is without a doubt the best looking film I’ve ever produced, so seeing it looking less than its best was disappointing. But the fact is, compared to all the very nice things that happened during the Passion Plays CineKink session, it hardly mattered.
The coolest thing that happened (for me) when DAMON AND HUNTER was up was sitting in the very last row of the theater, and seeing my movie through a forest of heads. It looked just like a shot out of movie where we’re in a theater, only in this movie it was my movie that was up on the screen, and it felt super cool! But as nice as that was, it wasn’t the best part of the session.
The very best part of the session is that every single one of these very sexy films got the right kind of laughs (and none of the wrong kind!). Shared laughter is the ultimate audience experience, and is what makes seeing a film in a theater so different from watching it at home. Every single one of the films made us all laugh together. Sometimes it was titilated laughter, sometimes it was nervous laughter, sometimes it was knowing laughter, but it was always the right kind of laughter, never born of the unintentional self-parady that is so much a part of the usual experience of seeing sex films. But there was one collective “uh huh!” laugh that I especially want to tell you about.
The film was Jennifer Lyon Bell’s HEADSHOT, a short erotic art film with a simple premise: we see a fellow get a blowjob, from start to finish, but all we ever really see is his face. We hear the voice of the (obviously talented) felatrix a few times, and see the back of her head briefly when she first introduces herself, but other than that, all we see is the lucky young man’s face as she sucks him off.
The “uh huh!” laugh came about two thirds of the way in. She’s found her rhythm and he’s settle back to enjoy the ride. His eyes are closed when suddenly they pop open wide and he looks down, as if to say “Whoa, woah! Now that feels really good!”
Of course we all know that moment, from one side of it or the other. “Yeah, baby yeah. That feels so good. Don’t stop… Woah! Wow! That feels really good…” and you have to look down to see what sort of delicious trick is being played! And in that instant of collective recognition of 150 or so people thinking “yeah, I’ve been there” the audience let out a knowing “uh huh” sort of chortle in one collective voice.
Whether we suck dick, or get our dicks sucked, or both, in that one subtle cinematic moment, all of us saw ourselves up on the screen, all of us saw our own story being told, all of us were moved to give a collective, affirmative and apprecitive response–and it was magic! For me it was the highlight of the festival!
Were there moments like that in DAMON AND HUNTER? I think so. I hope so. But the truth is I was too self-conscious to really be in those moments myself. Afterwards so people said some very nice things, but it was all a bit of a blur, and frankly, after week away from my wife, I was eager to get packed up and get home to make some “uh huh” moment of our own.
Many thanks to Lisa for putting DAMON AND HUNTER in such wonderful cinematic company! The Passion Plays session at CineKink was a fun, sexy, and provocative evening out!
I had a little trouble sussing out the linking scheme on the Ynot website, but I finally got it sorted. So without further ado, here’s my phone chat with DarkLady and Lisa Vandever:
Oy, where do I start? (cue Julie Andrews…)
Thanks to our wonderful sponsor, PjurUSA we printed up 250 posters and 2500 postcards in advance of this weekend premiere of DAMON AND HUNTER at the New York CineKink Film Festival.
And because Ell told me she had such fun and received so much love and support when she put out posters and flyers in Melbourne I thought it would be a good idea if I went out and postered for CineKink. After all, it’s a home town premiere, and there’s nothing like the personal touch, right?
So Saturday I came into town, posters and postcards in a big box, first stop Chelsea, which has (in many people’s eyes) replaced Greenwich Village as the gay ground zero in Manhattan.
Chelsea is fabulous. The streets are filled with fabulous looking men, there are fabulous boutiques and restaurants. Chelsea looks and feels like what you think gay New York would look and feel like. Chelsea does not care that you have a movie. Not even if it’s your home town premiere. Not even if it has beautiful young men kissing it. My sister and I schlepped around, hearing “no” more often than “yes”.
I also managed to dump the cart four times. It’s a toss up between the time that I hit the older gay man in the ankle with the cart and then dumped the contents all over the Southwest corner of Ninth Ave and 23rd (fourth dumpage), and the time I spilled all 250 poster and 2500 postcards over the narrow foyer of the porn shop on 21st just off Eighth (first dumpage) for low point of the evening. I know that a few people said nice things, but the specifics are lost in the haze of people who were disdainfully disinterested, or even down right surly. 
We caught a cab back to my neighborhood (Hells Kitchen) and tried few places between where the cab let us off and my apartment. They were nice, they were interested. We had dinner, and as a last stop I put a poster and cards in the gay bar on Ninth between 45th and 46th. Everyone there down right friendly.
Sunday morning we had a diner breakfast and then when schlepping up Ninth Ave. I had resolved to ask at every place we past, no matter the toll it might take on my (already low) spirits. But instead of another ass-kicking, everyone smiled and said “sure!” and “congratulations” and “do you have tape”. Every Arab-run bodega said yes; every Korean run beauty salon said yes; every pizza place said yes, nearly every resturaunt. The cobbler said yes, the frame shop said yes, the barber said yes. By late morning posters for DAMON AND HUNTER were up and down both sides of Ninth ave, from 42nd to 57th, and I had received a bunch of well-wishes, good-lucks and way-to-goes.
My sister had a singing thing to go do up town, so I said goodbye to her and caught a cab downtown to the Village. Would the Village be more like Chelsea, or more like Hells Kitchen?
Well I’m pleased to say that the Village was like Hells Kitchen. Shop keepers and bartenders told me “tear down what ever’s out of date and put of your poster”, or “I have a lot of customers I think would really like to see this, can I have a few more cards?” I criss-crossed Bleeker and Christopher streets, Greenwich Ave, and Hudson, went up and down West 4th twice. Every where people were nice and interested and congratulatory. They made me feel like I had accomplished something special by having my movie play in New York! It was fun, and my spirits were buoyed!
Monday I made hand-deliveries to editors at HX and Gay City and Next. I stopped by both Babeland stores and got a warm welcome, and they turned me onto a few joints in their neigborhoods that were hip to having the poster up. I went to the Pioneer theater and they were nice enough to let me put out cards (they rent my movies at their Two Boots Video). I stopped by Kim’s Video on St. Mark’s Place, and all the cool indie kids said “congrats!” and “good luck”!
Then on the way home I visited my lab and my telecine house, and everyone came out and clapped me on the back. “Best Documentary! Good for you!” Higher-ups were fetched to see the poster, and everyone had a good laugh at the big “Banned” red dot. Not many people shot porn or docs on film anymore, and these were just the people who could appreciated what a risk I took shooting D&H on film. All the NYU film students who came in, their 100′ daylight spools of 16mm in hand, were eager to take cards, and excited to meet a real live DIY filmmaker who actually shoots film and makes a living.
I got back to my neighborhood, got a meatball hero and a beer. I ate the sandwich and drank the beer, and was asleep by nine o’clock and didn’t wake till nine this morning. Tonight is the opening party for CineKink. I’ve got a few posters left so I suppose I’ll take them. There are just enough postcards for the screening itself.
The last few days feels a bit mad. I actually lost a notch on my belt from all the walking around, and there were some moment where I thought I must be a bit crazy going door to door in Manhattan and with my poster and cards and DVDs. But here now, after three solid days, I think it was the right thing to do. Google results for “Comstock Films” have spiked and so have sales, so maybe people are actually seeing the poster, going home, and getting on their computer to find out who we are.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking about the word “shameless”. One of the things I love about making my movies is when it looks as though the people are so lost in their pleasure that they’ve gone entirely beyond caring that the camera is there. Somewhere Saturday late evening I stopped caring about how silly I felt trudging up and down Eighth Ave with my little cart. Not caring didn’t make it fun, but it did allow me to keep going. I was shameless, and that shamelessness took me into the very nice days that I had Sunday and Monday, and now a few hundred more people know about DAMON AND HUNTER and Comstock Films, and that’s a lot better than a sharp stick in the eye!
Many thanks to PjurUSA and my lovely wife Peggy!
For all of you who have been waiting with bated breath, the CineKink schedule is up!
DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER is on the Passion Plays program, starting at 8:30PM on Saturday, October 21. Also on the Passion Plays program are:
ROAST RABBIT, PERUVIAN GIRL AND DESOLATION, 12 min.
Dir. Pablo Valiente
UNTITLED FIRST PORNO 6 min.
Dir. Kirby Ferguson
HONEY AND BUNNY 10 min.
Dir. Eva Midgley
FILTHY FOOD 5 min.
Dir. T. Arthur Cottam
HEADSHOT 9 min.
Dir. Jennifer Lyon Bell
And don’t forget, everyone who comes to the Passion Plays session will go home with a sample size bottle of Eros Bodyglide, courtesy of our friends at Pjur USA!
See you there!
DAMOM AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER will have its US premiere at the 2006 CineKink Film Festival, going on October 17-22 at the Anthology Film Archive in New York, NY.
DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER will screen on Saturday October 21 at 8:30PM, and director Tony Comstock will be part of a panel with other New York erotic filmmakers Candida Royalle, Joanna Angel, Joe Gallant, and Michael Lucas, and moderated by Audacia Ray, held at 4:30PM that same day.
DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER is the third in an ongoing series of documentaries from New York based director Tony Comstock. Comstock’s films explore the real and vital role that sexual pleasure plays in human relationships, depict it graphically, and celebrate its power. In this case, the couple in question are long time lovers Damon DeMarco and Hunter James, and the film centers around an explicit portrayal of Damon and Hunter making love.
In July DAMON AND HUNTER was name Best Documentary at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival in Melbourne Australia, but was subsequently banned by the Australian government from showing at the 2006 QueerDOC Gay and Lesbian Film Festival held this September in Sydney Australia.
Says director Tony Comstock, “I’ve long known that by making a movie like DAMON AND HUNTER I was charting a course toward making films that would ask provocative questions about collision of sex and the moving image, and personal freedom and the boundaries of the legitimate role of the state. But in all honesty, I never expected DAMON AND HUNTER would be the one to bring these issues to the fore. It’s a very tender-hearted film, there’s really nothing “controversial” about it in anyway, save the fact that we actually see what physical love between two men looks like in intimate detail. I can’t think of a better way to get over the disappointment of not having the film screen in Sydney than by having our hometown premiere at CineKink!”
CineKink is an organization that recognizes and encourages the positive depiction of alternative sexuality in film and television, most visibly through its annual film festival, CineKink NYC.
Comstock Films produces award-winning, documentary-style erotic films that explore and celebrate the connection and chemistry of real couples having real sex. Comstock Films titles have enjoyed worldwide recognition as outstanding achievements in cinema, appearing in festivals and taking home prizes in Canada, Australia, Sweden, Germany and here in the US.
Other Comstock Films titles include MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY, named Best Documentary and Best Overall at the 2002 SinCine New York Erotic Film Festival and Best of the Fest at the 2002 Sexual Health and Pleasure Film Festival; XANA AND DAX: WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT, named Hottest Straight Sex Scene at the 2006 Emma Awards for feminist porn in Toronto, Canada; and the soon to be released MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER, Comstock Films’ first shot-on-film, anamorphic widescreen title featuring a straight couple.
