A drama about two Echo Park teenagers struggling to find acceptance, "Quinceanera" has become one of the season's indie darlings, winning awards and critical acclaim everywhere it goes.
This from the same filmmakers who brought you hard-core porn titles such as "The Florida Erection," "The Hole" and "Toolbox."
Not that long ago, it was nearly impossible for filmmakers, producers and actors to move from adult cinema into "legitimate" Hollywood. For every Barry Sonnenfeld (a former adult film cinematographer turned "Men in Black" blockbuster director), countless others failed to make the transition.
But those doors are no longer shut tight as the film business becomes increasingly reliant on outside financiers -- people freed from corporate worries about whether a filmmaker's background might hurt box-office business. What's more, porn -- though still widely reviled -- is no longer as socially condemned as it once was.
Another case in point: This May, independent distributor Lionsgate released "See No Evil," a thriller funded by World Wrestling Entertainment and made by director Gregory Dark, whose extensive list of adult film credits includes "Sex Freaks," "New Wave Hookers 3" and "The Devil in Miss Jones 5: The Inferno." Dark, who also has made music videos for Britney Spears and Mandy Moore, declined to be interviewed for this article.
Hollywood's inhibitions about sexually explicit content are receding so fast that a number of established independent film directors have started making movies in which their actors, rather than simulating sex, are having intercourse and performing other graphic sex acts with their costars. Theater owners may refuse to book such explicit films, and newspapers and TV stations may block their ads, but these filmmakers don't seem to mind whatever commercial restraints accompany the inevitable NC-17 rating that such fare is sure to generate.
At this year's Cannes Film Festival, writer-director John Cameron Mitchell introduced "Shortbus," a film Variety movie critic Todd McCarthy called "unquestionably the most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the realm of the porn industry." Independent distributor ThinkFilm will release "Shortbus" on Oct. 6.
