They want rainbow, not vanilla.
An erotic film-making threesome is organizing a queer porn festival in Williamsburg, after a recent smut fest in Bushwick failed to satisfy.
The organizers of this weekend’s Queer Porn Film Festival say the New York City Porn Film Festival, which debuted in Bushwick in late February, lacked diversity in its dirty movie selection, screening mostly straight and gay male porn, but little else from the rest of the queer spectrum. Many of the alternative pornographers participating attended the original sextival, but the experience left them cold, said an organizer.
“The filmmakers I am working with all found that their experiences left them wishing for something more punk rock and feminist,” said festival founder Courtney Trouble, a pornographer and porn performer from Oakland, Calif.
Trouble hooked up with Brooklyn filmmaker Jacqueline Mary and Seattle filmmaker Tobi Hill-Meyer to organize the day-long event, which will take place at queer performance space the Spectrum on April 19. The Queer Porn Film Festival will feature more than 30 professional and amateur films, which organizers said will focus more on women, transgender people, and bondage and kink activities than those at the New York City Porn Film Festival. But the skin-flick spectacle is not a reaction to its more mainstream predecessor, Trouble said. It is a celebration of queer people getting it on on-screen.
“This is not a protest event,” she said. “It is meant to show off what the queer porn movement is as a whole.”
And the organizers of the New York City Porn Film Festival say there are no hard feelings. The festival, which made headlines when singer Miley Cyrus submitted — then pulled — a short film of herself from its lineup, is targeted at a broader audience, said a spokesman.
“The NYC Porn Film Festival purposefully is not a queer or feminist separatist event,” said Simon Leahy, who also heads up Bushwig, an annual drag extravaganza. “We try to be inclusive for everyone. We feel it is great that people create their own festivals and the QPFF have our full support.”
The New York City Porn Film Festival gave the Queer Porn Film Festival some sponsorship money, but Leahy declined to say how much.
The upstart pervy picture show will also host a panel of queer porn stars, a vegan-friendly pancake brunch, and its own live porn shoot during the after-party. The organizers are also inviting attendees to bring their own home-made pornos to share during the bash — those who have not yet made their own queer porn film can learn how at an afternoon workshop.
Trouble said she and her porn pals hope to show attendees that queer porn is about art and representation, not just titillation, by creating an immersive, educational experience.
“We are trying to show why it is so important to be naked on camera and for queer sex and bodies to be visible,” she said.
The Queer Porn Film Festival at the Spectrum (59 Monstrose Ave. between Lorimer Avenue and Leonard Street in Williamsburg, www.queer
