I’m over joyed to bring you the first of the 3 films we’ve shot in the last 2 months. Excited for whats to come.

Pretty / Dirty was the name of a mid career retrospective show of the work of photographer and painter, Marilyn Minter.

Her work often uses hyper-real depictions of exaggerated feminine tropes. Glistening lips, messy, heavy shadowed eyes and sticky skin all bursting through in glossy, high fashion parody, extreme close up. So intense and excessive they take the language of glamour and show the visceral filth beneath.

She's considered a feminist artist but her work is often derided for her use of porn and fashion imagery as buying into "the tools of the patriarchy" which is a criticism that porn and especially porn performers, ESPECIALLY those who perform exaggerated femininity come up against. 

Make up, eye lashes, luminous nails and red lips and sparkling eyes are part of glamour - in the old sense as well as the new. The origin of the word was from the scots, glamer, from earlier Scots gramarye (“magic, enchantment, spell”). Glamour used to mean witchcraft, it was a spell and a trick to lure people into seeing something that wasn't there, to captivate and distract and entrance.

And even today when we think about make up, people often talk about artificiality, that make up is a trick somehow? A way to continue to brand femininity and those who use it even today as somehow untrustworthy and manipulative. Misogyny outlasts across the ages, you can't teach old dogs new tricks. Whatever, I'm quite happy with that, I hope they stay scared.

Porn is obviously a wide church (with undeniable complexities about diversity and representation) but in some the grainy, amateur POV phone videos or intense gonzo gang bangs you can see a performer start, made up, looking pretty and get progressively sweatier and spittier and redder, it breaks down the facade and expectation of human perfection. Sex makes everyone intensely vulnerable and stripped bare, physically and mentally. You see the whites of eyes and the pink of the inside of someone's throat or ass or pussy. You see people "abandoning themselves" losing themselves to the intensity of that action or moment. I love that.

This film explores the intersection of Femininity and The Grotesque, when femme-ness, glamour, glitter is exaggerated to the point of excess, stomach-turning glistening, gluttonous, grossness. Gorgeous with emphasis on the gorge.

Our attempt to harness or homage the glitter and mess of a Marilyn Minter painting in a film.

We were lucky enough to work with amazing performers, Arabelle, Adahlia and Mimosa with cameo by Mickey.  Dream shoot. (Full disclosure, Mickey is one of my favourites, you'll see this by HOW. MANY. FILMS. of ours he is in. I love him and I love his face, unfortunately you're not going to find any of his face in this film. We wanted to keep the focus on the dick being used as a plaything, so he was gracious enough to let me cut all of his genuinely beautiful face out for the sake of The Concept. I'm not sure I forgive myself.)

Everyone was so good at indulging our messy weirdness, I love working with incredible performers who one-up my weird ideas. Put a flower in the pussy, sure! Eat these rose petals, DONE. Tears made of glitter, say no more. We had the best time meeting and working with everyone here, a real delight and privilege.

We were all picking glitter out of various orifices for days afterwards.

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