Cycles Of Porn - Sex/Life in L.A. - Part 2

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Los Angeles in the year 2005: 19-year-old lads move through an apartment that has been equipped with webcams and looks like some sort of futuristic internet doll’s house. Not-quite-so-young men fulfil their sexual dreams as protagonists in bareback productions. And, at private sex parties, almost every second guy has either taken part in a porn film or wants to. In 1997, I followed on camera the fortunes of a group of men who had chosen to work – either artistically or commercially – with their bodies. This footage later became part of my 1998 documentary, SEX/LIFE IN L.A. I’m still in touch with some of the men in that film, these include: lone battler Kevin Kramer, mature shooting star Cole Tucker, American boy-next-door Matt Bradshaw and friends of the occasional model John Garwood, who died of an overdose in 1998. Some of these men have successful careers behind them, others have left the sex industry altogether. Driven by a sense of adventure or by their own narcissism, young men today are still keen to put their own stamp on porn cinema. But the days of a purely non-commercial fulfilment of one’s sexual desires has long gone, and the interests of consumers, models and producers no longer coincide. Gay life – like the entire industry – has become something of a profession and is now thoroughly commercialised. Young models begin their sexual careers in internet containers; they enter the business fully aware of their self-exploitation and yet, at the same time, they are somehow unconscious of how they are being exploited. Meanwhile, bareback video producers scour the country in their motorhomes on the lookout for new protagonists. But can there be any winners in this game? Is there anything left of sex itself? And is there a life after porn? Jochen Hick

details

  • Runtime

    104 min
  • Country

    Germany
  • Year of Presentation

    2005
  • Year of Production

    2005
  • Director

    Jochen Hick
  • Cast

    Johnny Law, Holden Grey, Vin Nolan, Sergio Anthony, Rocky, Bastian, Corbin Michaels, Will West, Bill Gardner, Ray Butler, Kevin Kramer, Matt Bradshaw, Cole Tucker, David Danford, John Garwood, Jay Wheeler, Donnie Mauldin, Henning von Berg, Dan, Don, Johnny Axtell, Logan Balboa, Chi Chi La Rue
  • Production Company

    Galeria Alaska Productions
  • Berlinale Section

    Panorama
  • Berlinale Category

    Documentary Film

Biography Jochen Hick

Born in Darmstadt, Germany in 1960, he studied film at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg and also in Bologna between 1981 and 1987. He has worked as a freelance writer, journalist, director and producer for film and television. In 1994 he founded his own production company, Galeria Alaska Productions. Between 2007 and 2010 he was editor-in-chief and deputy director of programming at TIMM TV channel. Out in Ost-Berlin – Lesben und Schwule in der DDR (Out in East Berlin – Lesbians and Gays in the GDR) screened in Panorama in 2013, and Der Ost-Komplex (The GDR Complex) in 2016.

Filmography Jochen Hick

1992 Willkommen in Dom | 1995 Menmaniacs - The Legacy of Leather | 1998 Sex/Life in L.A | 2000 No One Sleeps