People who go to strip clubs are most likely seeking an escape from reality and to live out a fantasy of some sort. It is the stripper's job to provide that ("hands off") fantasy. But what many don't realize is that even the fantasy providers themselves have a reality to return to when the music stops. Filmmaker Artemus Jenkins' online documentary "P.O.P." takes a beyond-the-pole look into the lives of dancers at the popular Atlanta strip club Magic City. In it, women share their usually ignored stories about everything from how they ended up in the profession to how some have used it to create lucrative businesses.
Loop 21 caught up with Jenkins to explain why he thought this sub-culture was worthy of a look through a different lens.
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F**k for Forest (Polish release title is unexpurgated) follows the exploits of the eccentric Norwegian collective of the same name.
“This was the most difficult research of my life,” revealed director Michal Marczak in an interview with Polish Radio.
“Before I started making the film I familiarised myself with the work of the F**k for Forest group, which raises money for nature conservation by selling its own amateur porn movies,” he elaborated.
“It was not easy for me to wade through all that material, because, to put it delicately, these are not my artistic tastes,” he joked.
The film focuses on young Norwegian Danny, who joins the group on a mission to buy a tract of the Amazonian jungle so as to return it to the native Indians.
After Shriya and Anuskha essaying the role of a sex worker, it's now Charmee's turn. The hot actress will be soon seen as a sex worker in a Telugu film Prema Oka Maikam to be directed by Chandu of 10th Class fame. And for the first time in her career, Charmi will be essaying the role of a call girl in this film.
Prema Oka Maikam has Rahul of Happy Days fame as male lead and will be in the backdrop of Hyderabad. Shriya and Anushka earlier enacted as a sex worker for the films Pavithra and Vedam respectively.
Sex and disability are murky waters for film. How does a filmmaker depict sex involving disabled people without gawking or needlessly inflating the significance of the event? How to show it as both normal and meaningful?
These questions apply, of course, anytime filmmakers put sex on the screen, but the risks of picketers are lower when you’ve got pretty, able-bodied stars shaking the sheets. Films about people with disabilities often omit sex entirely—consider My Left Foot or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Scarlet Road, a recent documentary about an Australian sex worker who specializes in clients with disabilities, is undoubtedly sex-positive and determinedly non-voyeuristic, but celebrates the central sex worker as a goddesslike savior for her clients.
So I approached The Sessions with generous skepticism. The drama is based on the true story of Mark O’Brien, a polio survivor and writer who spent most of his life in an iron lung. At age 38, he decides to lose his virginity and hires a sex surrogate to guide him through the deed. But rather than glorifying sex or treating it with clinical coldness, writer-director Ben Lewin charts Mark’s quest with grace, warmth and wry humor. Explicit nudity (female only, thanks to the MPAA’s double standard) has never been so moving and delicate.
As Mark, the versatile John Hawkes—recently seen as a menacing meth addict in Winter’s Bone and a sinister cult leader in Martha Marcy May Marlene—turns in an astonishing performance. Hawkes spends the entire film on his back, his head cranked at a 90-degree angle and his spine contorted, but his wheezy voice and expressive eyes convey deep wells of pain and self-consciousness along with biting wit.
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Neer Dose, which also stars Jaggesh, will see the actor team up with director Vijayprasad once again
Speculations come to a close as actor Ramya confirms her presence in the Kannada film Neer Dose. "I'd heard about this project many months ago. So when Vijayprasad (the director) said he wanted to cast me, I was keen on taking it up as I enjoyed working with him on the film Sidlingu," says the actor.
The film, which flagged off recently, also stars Jaggesh as one of the lead characters. However, the two are not romantically paired.
Ramya reveals that the film is going to be a complete comedy. "Like Sidlingu, this will be a laugh riot. The story is a slice-of-life kind of script, which also has a sweet message," she says.
The film will see Ramya play a sex worker, a character she has essayed earlier in the Deepa Mehta-produced short film Prarambha.
Quiz Ramya about her choice of films lately, wherein she has more than just running around trees to do, and she says, "This was bound to happen. How long will filmmakers want me to do the same old thing. While I'm also taking on commercial films, the characters I play have a lot more to do than what stereotypical heroine roles demand."
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