Sex still sells at Cannes

2001-05-13 16:30

Cannes, France - For all its high-minded films and black-tie dinners, the Cannes Film Festival has also always been associated with sex, and this year is no exception.

Several of the 600 or so films being screened on the sidelines of the prestigious event are using titillation to get noticed, as are many of the minor celebrities and wannabes crowding the cafes, beaches and hotels.

And then, of course, there's the traditional Hot d'Or sidebar, a parallel awards ceremony for the porn film industry that has become a traditional drawcard for media attention, despite the best efforts of the official festival's organisers to stamp it out.

Not that the real event itself is shy of showing a bit of flesh.

Le Pornograph (The Pornographer), a French film by Bertrand Bonello presented on Saturday in the high-profile Critic's Fortnight, tells the story of a director of X-rated videos who tries to bring meaning back to the genre even as he battles his rebellious son.

But it also has much more than a sheen of authenticity: several of the sex scenes are genuine, filmed using a real porn star named Ovidie.

"I was certain it would be more obscene if I just showed simulated scenes of the act," Bonello said. "And after all, the scene doesn't have a pornographic nature, it has a real dramatic role."

Further from the main event, but still in the festival, are other films that have titles meant to attract attention, among them The Most Fertile Man in Ireland, Story of O - Untold Pleasure, Sex: The Annabel Chong Story and Sexes Tres Opposes (Very Opposite Sex).

With all this lascivious activity going on, it's no surprise that one of the pioneers of the mass-market sex industry, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, has turned up on his third visit to Cannes.

His first time in the Riviera resort town in 1959, he said, was to see a "lusty little French starlet by the name of Brigitte Bardot".

"Sex is the reason we're all on this planet. It's the main link between individuals, there's nothing more natural," he said.

Surrounded by several "Bunnies" and looking fit, Hefner celebrated his 75th birthday before the cameras, his suspiciously firm chin jutting out as he blew out candles on a cake.

Playboy's days of involvement in film-making are over, he said, apart from supporting a film of his life being produced by Brian Glazer (who made The Grinch). In terms of casting for that movie, he sees only one actor who could portray his flamboyance and determination: Ben Affleck).

But he has harsher words for his rival Larry Flynt, the wheelchair-bound US publisher who made his fortune with the hard-core magazine "Hustler" and whose life was the subject of the 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt.

"Flynt has never done anything interesting, apart from the film that had to do with him," he said.

Nevertheless, this year it will be Flynt who will preside over the Hot d'Or awards to be held on Wednesday in a hotel in Cannes well away from the waterfront, where the main official events take place.

A total of 14 statuettes are to be handed out at the 10th edition of the annual ceremony for the porn industry, which is usually widely covered by the world's media.

- Sapa-AFP

- SAPA