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Local pornography film festival Pornotopia will be showing off the best in independent pornographic flicks after being stalled out for nearly four years, said Molly Adler, co-owner of Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center and co-founder of Pornotopia.
This year’s event will run for one day instead of a full weekend like in past years, she said.
After a five-year battle with the city, which ended only when the state Supreme Court ruled 4-1 in favor of the fest, Adler said she was happy to get anything up on such short notice.
“I think this is really a relief and really a victory for free speech,” she said. “Consent is really sexy.”
The Nov. 1 event, dubbed “Pornotopia Uncensored,” will feature a sampling of films that would have been shown at the 2010 event had the festival been allowed to go forward.
Adler said a finalized schedule for the show has not been set, but she said attendees can expect to see film clips that include intimate moments, educational pieces and things that are sexual in nature, but not necessarily explicit.
Pornotopia, she said, is about showing a realistic portrayal of sex and sexuality that is often left out of mainstream adult films.
“(Mainstream) porn features sexual athletes. That’s their job; they’re performers,” Adler said. “Pornotopia is all about sex that is raw and real.”
One week before the main event, Adler and her business partner Matie Fricker will host a release party at Self Serve where participants will get a preview of the film clips.
The Pornotopia Film Festival began in 2007, and the most recent event was in 2009. The show went on hiatus after Albuquerque zoning authorities fined the Guild Cinema for showing adult films without a special permit, Adler said.
After losing in court and two appeals, the New Mexico branch of the American Civil Liberties Union presented the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the zoning ordinance infringed on free speech rights.
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Albuquerque’s zoning ordinance for adult entertainment businesses defines an adult entertainment business as an establishment that features “a live performance, act, or escort service distinguished or characterized by an emphasis on the depiction, description, exposure, or representation of specified anatomical areas or the conduct or simulation of specified sexual activities,” or “audio or video displays, computer displays, films, motion pictures, slides or other visual representations or recordings characterized or distinguished by an emphasis on the depiction, description, exposure or representation of specified anatomical areas or the conduct or simulation of specified sexual activities.”
Adler said the biggest problem with the ordinance is that it is too broad for business owners to know if they are breaking the law.
“A mainstream film, if it shows female breasts or a man with an erection under clothing, those things are illegal according to the zoning law,” she said. “So, technically, many many R-rated movies in mainstream theaters all over the city would be breaking zoning law, but they’ve never been cited.”
Adler said Fricker and she are putting this five-year fight behind them and are looking forward to holding the event this year. She said they hope to hold another weekend-long festival in 2014.
For more information on the upcoming Pornotopia event, visit selfservetoys.com/events/pornotopia-uncensored
