Director
Since the dawn of cinema, sex workers have served as muses to movie-makers. Cinematic sex workers are often fantasy figures, or cautionary tales, or just punchlines. Even in well-meaning documentaries reality is distorted by filmmakers who are determined to show trauma, violence and pathos rather than the resilient and thriving communities that are the norm for many sex workers. The Celluloid Bordello brings sex workers to the cinema. With equal parts historical overview, critique, and homage, this eye-opening film lets real-life dommes, escorts, porn stars and hustlers tell you which films they love and which they hate, which get it right and which miss the mark, and, most importantly, how perpetuating stereotypes in media affects real peoples' lives.
Director
As told by real-world sex workers, the documentary Whores on Film, navigates the history of sex work in cinema and the stereotypes that have engrained themselves in film language. The clichés of the sex worker as unable to receive or give love, lacking in agency, desperate and even unredeemable, are presented with overflowing evidence from some of Hollywood's most respected films. A fascinating insight into how cinema impacts real-world communities and a hopeful argument for the power of cinema to comfort and inspire.
