What do you get when you cross a documentary with the world of pornography? Well, Berlin-born, Vienna-based writer-director Rosa Friedrich (Wander) has done it, and the hybrid doc result is called My Friend the Porn Star.
If you are scratching your head in confusion now, let me back up and explain. My Friend the Porn Star, from Vienna-based production company Kacerovsky (formerly known as ostblok), will world premiere in the Proxima competition program of the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on Tuesday, July 7.
The film was produced by Dominic Spitaler for Austria’s Kacerovsky. Laura Ettel is the director of photography on My Friend the Porn Star, while the editor is Melanie Schmidt. New Docs is handling sales, with Stadtkino Filmverleih being the distributor in Austria.
In case you worry about telling friends you are going to see a new film but feeling embarrassed to mention its title, maybe this will put you at ease. Friedrich was never that interested in porn, according to press notes for My Friend the Porn Star. That is, until her friend Timo expressed the wish to star in an “artistic erotic film.” So, the friend that Rosa is agrees to help him get a movie project off the ground, find a co-star and document the process along the way.
You probably know that this is the time when either another shoe drops, or clothes drop. Well, could it maybe be both!? “The closer it gets to the shooting date, the more Timo feels embarrassed and doubtful about having involved himself in the first place,” a summary on the KVIFF website teases. What’s Rosa to do? Easy! “His face is ultimately replaced with the help of AI, and Rosa, together with a dominatrix, three trans women, a food-porn creator, a sex coach and other protagonists, continues with the film.”
Or as press notes for My Friend the Porn Star say about Timo: “His last-minute withdrawal turns the project into a collective experiment about desire, visibility and the fear of being seen.” After all, it leaves Rosa with a camera full of footage and a lot of questions.
Embracing his decision, and AI, the filmmaker “turns his withdrawal into the film’s central theme: the desire to be seen versus the urge to hide,” highlight the press materials. Rewatching her material, it becomes clear that this conflict isn’t Timo’s alone. The participants in the auditions for Timo’s sex film also move between curiosity, self-determination and doubt. Rosa invites them to reshape the film together.”
Among what promises to be a colorful cast of characters we meet in the movie are the likes of Alice Moe alias Eric Big Clit. Or as the press notes mention: “What follows is a collective experiment: a dominatrix, three trans women, a non-binary food-porn creator, a stylist, an actress, a sex coach and a chef each bring their own vision of eroticism to the project. Moving between playful enactment and intimate documentary, a humorous film emerges that constantly reinvents itself – just like its protagonists.”
Friedrich shares this in a director’s statement: “I never expected to find myself caught up in the making of a porn film. But when Timo – my friend’s stage name – told me about his long-held dream of making an artistic sex film with himself in the lead role, the story wouldn’t let me go. As we started working together, I realized I was less interested in whether Timo’s film would actually get made than in what would happen along the way. What fascinated me was the contradiction at the heart of it: the desire to be seen, and the fear of being judged for it.”
And the writer-director recalls: “When Timo dropped out, I decided to stay with the material and find a new way in. That led me to anonymize his footage with AI and to continue the film as a collective process, shaped by the different perspectives of the people who came to the castings. In the end, the film became a result with its own purpose: not a provocation, but an invitation to think differently about visibility, shame and self-protection.”
If what you have read so far doesn’t quite tickle your fancy, THR can exclusively premiere the trailer, the ultimate tease, so to speak, for My Friend the Porn Star right here. Meet Rosa and Timo as they explore what people find sexy. Just to be extra safe, you may not want to watch this one in a public space…
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