A sneak preview of the seventh in Tony Comstock’s ongoing Real People, Real Live, Real Sex documentary series, Brett and Melanie: Boi Meets Girl is an exploration of sexual pleasure in committed relationships and the problematic place of explicit sexuality in cinema. ”Brett and Melanie” depicts a butch/femme couple, and opens up questions about strength and vulnerability in the context of how we portray and interpret gender. Throughout Brett and Melanie’s interview, there is a constant dance of who is strong for whom, of who is vulnerable and who nurtures; and this dance continues when Brett and Melanie make love.

By including frank footage of Brett and Melanie’s lovemaking along with their candid testimony, the film also opens up questions about the meaning of reality in the context of documentary filmmaking, and explodes preconceptions about the place of sexuality and eroticism in cinema.

Curated by Colin Weatherby, and followed with a panel discussion exploring cinema, sexuality, gender, and love with Velvet Park Managing Editor Diana Cage, Cinekink Film Festival Director Lisa Vandever, and Tony Comstock.

Location: Union Docs, 322 Union Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211 (Plan your route using Hopstop)
Cost: $9 suggested donation

Union Docs listing

About Brett and Melanie: Boi Meets Girl
2010
Length: 54 mins.
Acquisition Format: Super16mm film and 24p video
Presentation format: 24p DVD

“Brett and Melanie: Boi Meets Girl” is the seventh in Tony Comstock’s ongoing Real People, Real Life, Real Sex documentary series, an exploration of sexual pleasure in committed relationships and the problematic place of explicit sexuality in cinema.

“Brett and Melanie” depicts a butch/femme couple, and opens up questions about strength and vulnerability in the context of how we portray and interpret gender. Throughout Brett and Melanie’s interview, there is a constant dance of who is strong for whom, of who is vulnerable and who nurtures; and this dance continues when Brett and Melanie make love.

By including frank footage of Brett and Melanie’s lovemaking along with their candid testimony, the film also opens up questions about the meaning of reality in the context of documentary filmmaking, and explodes preconceptions about the place of sexuality and eroticism in cinema.

About Tony Comstock
In a world awash in sexualized imagery, why does so little of it speak to the common pleasurable reality of sex? A filmmaker and photographer for more than 20 years Tony Comstock has explored this and other aspects of the human condition. Subjects of Comstock’s films have included love, sex, 9/11, indigenous fisheries, hurricanes, refugees, HIV/AIDS orphans, and the visualization of God. His current focus is the Real People, Real Life, Real Sex series. Reaction to these films has ranged from film festival laurels and critical and popular acclaim, to police raids on screenings and intimidation of DVD retailers.

WHERE: Michelson Theatre, Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway, Room 648

Department of Cinema Studies
Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
A Film Studies Center Special Event

The world is awash in sexualized imagery, but that imagery rarely speaks to or captures the pleasurable reality of sex. Award-winning filmmaker Tony Comstock takes us into the legal and business realities that shape and often warp the sexual imagery we see. Drawing on examples from Hollywood’s history of self-censorship, landmark obscenity cases, and the collision of technology and image-making, Comstock offers an expanded framework for understanding of how what we do and do not see in cinema affects our understanding of our own sexuality

This event is FREE and open to the public.

Tony Comstock writes:

If you’re not a registered user with your super-secret “adult titles” search enabled, you can’t.

You can find 9 SONGS, a film about a fictional pair of rock-show going, coke-snorting lovers, that famously features explicit footage of felatio, cunnilingus, coitus, and even a pop-shot.

You can find PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA, the film that shared the Best Documentary prize with DAMON AND HUNTER at the 2006 Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

You can even find MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY, our first erotic documentary title.

But you can’t find DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER.

Says IMDB:

“The IMDb contains over 400,000 different movie titles. The aim of the database is to cover as many titles and genres as possible. As a result, some of these titles contain words or expressions that some of our users may find inappropriate and some movies themselves may also fall into this category.

To provide some level of control for those of a sensitive nature some adult titles have been made searchable only by users who are registered with the IMDb and have requested access to this material.”

“Inappropriate.” Apparently an intimate film about two young men in love, and loving one another is “inappropriate.”

Caligula,, Bob Guccione’s notorious bait and switch production isn’t “inappropriate.”

(more…)

What a swell party it was! The bloggers braved the cold, and were there in force to help Audacia Ray celebrate her movie debut: Mikey Mongol (Bi Apple production mgr), Jefferson and Avah, Selina, Lolita, Boymeat and Dahling, Sinclair, Lux Nightmare, Cherry Bomb (who peformed), Jane Vincent, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Tony Comstock (looking hot in a black tux jacket and leather pants), Chris Hill, Lex Konrad and Les. Chelsea Girl was missed – the poor thing has a mysterious bug that might be mono.Sorry I don’t have better pics. I was deep in conversation with Greg of Njoy Toys at the back of the room. I’m familiar with his products but he showed me a prototype of the “11″ (as in “goes to 11“) – the head on one end of it seems around 6″ around…

Coverage (updated):

• More of my pics at my Flickr.

• Audacia has a first writeup on her blog. and she has party pics, too.

• Audacia’s report, pt. 2.
• Jefferson’s whimsical post, Blue Balloon.

• Lolita’s writeup.

• Mikey Mongol, the film’s production manager, has a writeup.

• Nick McGlynn’s pics are here.

• Fleshbot has Richard Blakely’s videos.

• Gerry Visco has an up close photoset on Flickr.