It’s official! ASHLEY AND KISHA: FINDING THE RIGHT FIT will play at this year’s Long Beach Q Film Festival, taking place October 12-14 at the historic art deco style Art Theater.
Yay!
Last Wednesday night, a technical glitch prevented the screening of The ‘International Male’ a collection of short films at New Zealand’s Outtakes Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. Scrambling to fill the gap, festival organizers offered the audience the choice of LIVING DAY TO DAY or DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER. I’ll let GayNZ.com take it from here:
Murmurings from the largely male audience appeared to agree on showing the ‘Damon and Hunter’ film – a “hard-core love story” which contained explicit sex scenes throughout.
“We told the audience the film was explicit, and to leave the cinema if this kind of thing bothers you,” says the festival volunteer.
“A few people left the cinema at that point, and then I noticed a few leave during the screening.”
Most stayed for the 46-minute documentary showing a male adult-star couple talking about their sex lives. The film ended with a ten-minute explicit sex scene. Many in the remaining audience applauded at the ‘climax’ to the showing.
I remember the audience at Cinekink applauding at the ‘climax’ too. At first I was afraid they were goofing on the film, but within moments I realized the audience was sincere, like an audience cheering when the couple in a romantic comedy finally kisses.
I’m also pleased to see the film written up as having a 10 minute love-scene. In fact, the scene is very nearly 15 minutes long. Always better when people think a film is shorter than it actually is!
No word yet on last night’s official Outtakes screening. Hopefully it went well too!
Is there anything more embarrassing than writing about yourself in the third person? Yes there is. Writing a narrative of your accomplishments in the third person. Peggy’s away for a couple of days, which means I have no proof reader. Help!
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Tony Comstock began exploring his ideas for a new approach to erotic cinema in the mid-nineties. Working with his wife Peggy, the two began shooting unreleased studies with friends and acquaintances to work through both technical and creative questions about how love-making could be captured in a way that was realistic, arousing, and cinematic.
The resulting short films were promising enough that in the Summer of 2001, Comstock directed his first film intended for commercial release, “Marie and Jack: A Hardcore Love Story.” Finished in late 2001, “Marie & Jack” received an indifferent welcome on the film festival circuit, and was rejected from every festival it officially entered in 2002. But it was invited to two festivals devoted to erotic and sexuality themed films, where “Marie & Jack” received an enthusiastic response from both audiences and judges.
Convinced this enthusiasm was evidence there was an audience for his work, Comstock spend 2003 marketing the film directly to independent video stores and book stores. At first the reception was cautious. While store owners and buyers were personally enthusiastic about “Marie & Jack”, they were unsure there was a market for a documentary-style short erotic film, especially when majority of the 28 minute running time was taken up by a talking-head interview. But in the Fall of 2003, San Francisco sex writer and educator Violet Blue named “Marie and Jack” to her Top Five Erotic Films of 2003, and by the end of the year, the commercial response was strong enough that pre-production was begun on a second film.
“Xana and Dax: When Opposites Attract” was shot in January of 2004, but a seemingly small cinemotography decision delayed its release until Spring of the following year. In the hopes of achieving a more cinematic look, Tony chose to shoot “Xana & Dax” in a 30fps progressive format, rather than the 30fps interlaced format used on “Marie and Jack”. The full ramifications of this choice did not become apparent until editing, when he realized the cadence and motion signature of the progressive format was completely different from either the traditional video or film, and his natural instincts on how to cut the film were all wrong. But after more than year of on again/off again struggle, “Xana & Dax” was release in the Spring of 2005, and has gone on to become Comstock Films highest grossing film to date.
2005 also saw new production. Not completely satisfied with either 30p or 30i video, Comstock worked with his long-time cinematographer Kiko Martin on a hybrid approach for these next films; shooting Super16 for the lovemaking portions, where exposure latitude was crucial; and 24fps progressive video for the interviews, where lighting could be more precisely controlled. Working closely with New York’s Magna Sound, he also developed a pulldown-free telecine process for the transfer of these productions’ film footage into the digital editing environment. This allowed Comstock to integrate both the loving-making footage and interview footage in a native 24fps post-production environment, rather than the industry-standard witch’s brew of field interlace and interframes usually needed to accommodate mixed media production.
The first of these productions, “Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together” was released in the Spring of 2006. That Summer it was invited to screen in the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, where it was named Best Documentary. From there the film was scheduled for two showings at Sydney’s QueerDOC Gay & Lesbian documentary film festival. But the film festival was unable to secure a waiver from the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (the OFLC objected to the explicit depictions of oral and anal intercourse and mutual mastubation,) and the screenings were ultimately cancelled. “Damon and Hunter” returned to New York for its home town premiere at the 2006 CineKink Film Festival, and finished the year by being named to several Best of 2006 lists, and receiving a GayVN Award nomination in the Best Alternative Release category along side the documentaries “Gay Sex in the 70s” and “That Man Peter Berlin.”
January of 2007 saw the release of “Matt and Khym: Better than Ever”, featuring a couple together nearly 20 years. Post-production work on the upcoming “Ashley & Kisha” distracted Tony and Peggy from the festival submission process, but even with no festival exposure, in a few short month “Matt & Khym” became Comstock Films’ fastest selling title to date.
And “Marie & Jack” the too short, too talky, too tender film that everybody loved, but nobody thought would sell? It’s in it’s fifth pressing, and available everywhere from Good Vibrations to Blockbuster Video.
“Ashley and Kisha: Finding The Right Fit” is the fifth installment in this ongoing exploration into love and sex and cinema, another declaration that sexual pleasure is a wholesome, joyous, and necessary part of love; and that the camera has no magical power to transmogrify it into anything less. Asked why he continues to devote his energies to the marginalized and marginalizing subject of sexual pleasure, Comstock borrows from Kisha’s testimony in his latest film:
“It needs no explanation,” says Comstock. “You watch these films. You tell me why not.”
I just got e-mail from our replication broker that the master and artwork files were received in good order. If all goes well, Ashley & Kisha should be on the truck by the end of next week.
With A&K done, this is the first time since the Spring of 2002 that I have not had a production breathing down my neck, the last few days have been the first few days spent thinking about how to promote Ashley & Kisha that I haven’t had lurking in the back of my mind that I have a movie I need to be working on. It feels strange and it feels unsettling, but it also feels good!
What I’m going to do with my new found freedom is lay seige to the film festival ciruit on behalf of Ashley & Kisha. The last time I did that was in 2002 with Marie & Jack, and it wasn’t very successful. Either the world wasn’t ready, or the film wasn’t good enough, or both, and Marie & Jack wasn’t accepted into a single festival I entered. (It did get invited into some festivals that year, and even picked up a few awards. Considering Marie & Jack has gone on to become a critically acclaimed best-seller, maybe it was that “world isn’t ready” thing.)
What ever the case, things have a little changed in the last five years. Porn may or may not be more mainstream than ever, but Comstock Films sure is, and the cinematic landscape has changed a little too.
Since 2001 (when Marie & Jack was shot) we’ve seen THE DREAMERS, 9 SONGS, SHORTBUS and even DESTRICTED, and while none of these films has really broken out of the arthouse world, they have (re)introduced the idea that sex has a place in the cinema. That sex – cunts, cocks, assholes, and jism – have a reality that is worthy of being “closely observed”, that there is something human, perhaps even uplifting in an orgasm.
The pleasure gap remains. The “intent to arouse” is still cited as the dividing line between “art” and “porn”, and a film made with the intent to arouse, and featuring explicit depictions of sexuality can still find itself on the wrong side of what I believe are wrong-headed ideas about sex.
But that same sort of film can also play at film festivals and win awards. Now days a film like that can get certified by the Motion Picture Association of America. Now days you can even buy a film like that a Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or even Blockbuster.
So I’m going to campaign the festival circuit and see if we can’t get a little of the right kind of attention for Ashley & Kisha, and part of what that means is a Director’s Statement. But as much as I like blabbering here, where I feel like I’m talking to my friends, that sort of “judge this film by my words, not by what you see on the screen” thing that director’s statements so often seem to be is just the sort of thing that gives me writer’s block.
But I got a little help from Kisha, and fought my way through, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound half bad.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT“Why am I this way? It needs no explanation. You saw the movie. You tell me why not.” – Kisha, from “Ashley and Kisha: Finding The Right Fit”
Those are Kisha’s last words in the film I’ve presented for your consideration. Kisha is talking about loving another woman, but after more than ten years of making these film, I’m not sure than anything I might say about why I need to make films about sex could put it any better. None the less, I will try.
In the course of these ten years I’ve visited with and witnessed many couples making love, and what has struck me is that whether a couple is younger or older; black or white or some shade in between; lesbian, gay, or straight; or practices familiar or more exotic acts; no matter any of these differences, there is a profound transcendence in the giving and receiving of sexual pleasure.
In witnessing this giving and receiving, in seeing desire writ large in faces both familiar and strange, I have seen myself. I have seen my own desire to please and be pleased, to pleasure and be pleasured, to love and be loved. And it is that seeing of one’s self that is, for me, the essential cinematic experience; that wonderful spark of recognition, that moment when the screen becomes a mirror for our own hopes and dreams. “Ashley and Kisha: Finding The Right Fit” is just such a mirror for me, and I hope it will be for you too.
Why do I make films about sex? Watch “Ashley and Kisha”, and you tell me why not!
When I was 10 I got a black cat and I named him “13″. 13 turned out to be a very lucky cat, living well into his late teens and even getting photographed with a vice-presidential candidate (Long funny story I won’t bother you with now.)
When I was in high school, I wore 13 on the soccer field and 52 (4×13) on the football field (13 is not a lineman’s number.)
Today, on Friday the 13th, I found that DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER is going to be playing at the 13th annual Out Take Reel Queer Film Festival in New Zealand:
“We very much enjoyed it and I’d like to confirm our interest in screening “Damon & Hunter” in Out Takes 2007 in New Zealand…I look forward to hearing from you soon - and thanks again for sending the screener. It was a real pleasure to see something different in the genre - a well-made, fun film. I’m sure it will be a hit with our audiences.”
–Simon Fulton, Chief Programmer, Out Takes 2007
No word on the schedule yet, as I only just written back to them to confirm that yes, absolutely I’d like to have our film in the festival. But as soon as I know more, you know I’ll be posting it here!(And yes. Take that you IMBb mutherfuckers!)
Triskaidekaphobia? Triskaidekaphilia!
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)
Comstock Films’ DAMOM AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER will have it’s West Coast Premiere in San Francisco on Friday January 19th, 9:00PM at the Yreba Buena Center for the Arts as part of the Passion Plays session of the CineKink Film Festival.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street (@ Third)
San Francisco
The award-winning DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER is the third in an ongoing series of documentaries from New York based director Tony Comstock that explore the real and vital role that sexual pleasure plays in human relationship. 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.
“From the first moment we turned the cameras on Damon and Hunter, I knew I had the opportunity to capture something very special, and by the time the shoot wrapped I knew we had the raw material to make a very wonderful film,” says director Tony Comstock. “The reception the film has received has been overwhelming. It’s a very tender-hearted film, but explicit film that has provoke both praise and condemnation, and I can’t wait for the chance to show this film in San Francisco!”
In July 2006 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 a the 2006 QueerDOC Gay and Lesbian Film Festival held this September in Sydney Australia. The film went on to be named to several “Best of 2006″ lists, including Fleshbot’s Top 10 Erotic Gay Films of 2006
Comstock Films produces award-winning, documentary-style erotic films that acknowledge the role of sex in human relationships, depict it graphically, and celebrate the power and joy of sexual pleasure and emotional intimacy. 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 just released MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER, Comstock Films’ first title featuring a Bay Area Couple.
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!
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!
More film festival news! This time the world premiere of XANA AND DAX: WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT at the Berlin Porn Film Festival. XANA AND DAX will screen October 22th at 10pm at the Kant Kino 5 at Kantstraat #54.
XANA AND DAX is an inside look at the sexual and emotional relationship of Xana and Dax Star, and is said by critics to contain the most intimate 69ing footage ever captured on film. Just this Summer, XANA AND DAX was named Best Straight Sex Scene at the 2006 Emma Awards for Feminist Porn in Toronto Canada.
The Berlin arts festival will also include works from many of the worlds most provocative erotic artists, including: Andreas Fux, Bruce LaBruce, Richard Kern, Maria Cyber, Anja Weber, Emilie Jouvet, Christine Wons, Nan Goldin, Charles Gatewood, Henning von Berg, Isabelle McEwen, Eon McKai, Emilie Jouvet, Annie Sprinkle, Maria Beatty, Todd Verow, Jerry Douglas, Benjamin Meade, Yuji Kitano, Chris Ho, Maria Cyber, Andreas Fux, Christina Wons, Anja Weber, Petra Joy, Eran Kedar, Louis Dupont, Jörg Andreas, Falk Lux, Horst Braun, Akihiro Suzuki, Ela Troyano and Tessa Hughes-Freeland.
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; DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER, name Best Documentary at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival; 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.
