The 6th San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival presented
by Desiree Alliance, ISWFACE, BAYSWAN and SWOP-USA
Producers: Carol Leigh (Scarlot Harlot), Laure Mc Elroy, Madeline
Lowe, Mariko Passion, Kirk Read and Luna Pantera
Event:
6th Biennial San Francisco Sex Worker Film, Art and Music Festival
Festival dates: May 30th to June 7th, 2009
Venues: Roxie, Artists’ Television Access, 9th Street
Independent Film Center, El Rio, Diva’s Night Club and
Bar (All Venues and Addresses Listed below)
Website:http://www.sexworkerfest.com/
Tel: 415-751-1659
Email: swfest@bayswan.org
Schedule Updates:http://www.sexworkerfest.com/schedule2009.html
Tickets Available at:http://www.sexworkerfest.com/tickets2009.html
We are
very excited to announce the 2009 San Francisco Sex Worker Film,
Arts and Music Festival. This is the 10th anniversary, and 6th
Biennial Festival! We feature Army of Lovers (a male sex worker
show), a Stripper Kareoke contest at Whore-A-Palooza and a shopping
orgy among many other events! The 2009 Sex Worker Fest will
be presented in tandem with the Queer Cultural Festival http://www.queerculturalcenter.org.
The 2009 Fest includes a week of fun, sexy, political, kinky,
naughty, bold and educational events: Saturday. May 30th- A
Radar benefit hosted by Michelle Tea with Dorothy Allison, Kirk
Read and more; Sunday, May 31st- Two events-An All Day Shopping
Orgy/ Kinky Gifts, Sex Worker Crafts Show and Garage Sale at
Center for Sex & Culture featuring entertainment including
Ckiara Rose reading from "Song of Men Slaves"; May
31st- late night party at Diva's sponsored by Sex Workers Outreach
Project's Madan Zoe Von Presscott and TS Lady Megan Louana;
Monday, June 1st- Sex Workers Outreach Project Hospitality Day
and Roundtable for sex workers and allies; Tuesday, June 2nd-
Whore-A-Palooza, a party at El Rio featuring a Stripper Kareoke
contest, with sex worker musicians including Mariko Passion
featuring Mistress of Ceremonies, Annie Danger; Wednesday and
Thursday, June 3rd and 4th- Army of Lovers, performances by
male sex workers, curated by Kirk Read at Center For Sex &
Culture; Friday June 5th Two events -Movies at Artists’
Television Access 7-10 PM; Late night- 9PM-3am, Cirque X"
at Paradise Lounge benefit for St. James Infirmary, 10 year
anniversary, a carnival of decadence with amazing fire troops
and aerial acrobatics to sexy burlesque shows, exotic dancers,
XXX porn stars, drag queens and fierce DJs!; On Sunday June
7th we feature a screening and discussion called "Krip
Sex! Krip Sex Work!" in collaboration with Sins Invalid
http://www.sinsinvalid.org/ at Ninth Street Independent Film
Center. The Sex Worker Fest also introduces work from artists
including cartoons by Modern Hooker at http://www.modernhooker.com.
This year we focus on documentaries, sex worker portraits and
activist shorts. The 2009 movies represent new trends in sex
worker cinema, the intimate focus on individual sex workers
with a new respect for their courage in the face of hazards
of the work and escalating repression. New activist shorts also
mark currents trend including "how-to," safety education
for sex workers, and unabashed, playful and celebratory sex
worker rights propaganda. This year the San Francisco Sex Worker
Festival is honored to share eight short works from sexworkerspresent,
the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers. These powerful productions
and collected work provide a valuable library of first person
accounts of sex worker's lives and organizing efforts in Asia
and around the World.
Movies include local and international premieres including Death
of a Whore, a Spanish-language biography of Grisélidis
Réal, whose re-burial caused a recent international scandal
( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/09/prostitute-griselidis-rea_n_173212.html
); "Happy Endings" with interviews from massage
parlor workers in Rhode Island as they are confronted with the
racism and zenophobia of local anti-prostitution activists;
Science Friction with "Cinema of Desire" in this portrait
of a trans sex worker in Thailand; "You're Welcome,"
a tender and humorous story of 'the whore next door' from Norway;
Intersections: Krip Sex! Krip Sex Work! a panel and international
feature about sexual services for disabled clients at Ninth
Street Media Center, sex worker activist produced short docs
and experimental work include “Prostitution Free Zone”
by PJ Starr, "Flipping the Lens: A Look at $pread Magazine,"
and "Know Your Rights" from Sex Workers Outreach Project
(SWOP) Chicago; US Premiere and award winner "A Safer Sex
Trade," from Cheap and Dirty Productions in Canada; experimental
shorts from Renegade Evolution and music videos from Scarlot
Harlot; plus clips from your neighbors' home grown porn with
Blowfish, Kink.com, No Fauxxx, and Good Vbirations and New School
of Erotic Touch including kink/SM/BD/fetish/sex ed from San
Francisco with stars including Madison Young in "Bride
of Sin."
Curators
and hosts include Scarlot Harlot, Luna Pantera, Ckiara Rose,
Madam Zoe Von Presscott, TS Lady Megan Louana, Kirk Read, Laure
McElroy, Annie Danger, Madeline Lowe and Mariko Passion.
Sponsors
include the National Queer Arts Festival http://www.queerculturalcenter.org,
Trannyfest http://www.trannyfest.com,
International Sex Worker Foundation for Art Culture and Education
http://www.iswface.org, the St. James Infirmary http://www.stjamesinfirmary.org,
Breaking The Silence Film and Arts Festival, BAYSWAN http://www.bayswan.org,
The Center for Sex & Culture http://www.sexandculture.org,
SWOP-USA http://www.swopusa.org,
Good Vibrations, http://www.goodvibes.com,
the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Inc, and others to be announced!
For further information, including sponsorship opportunities,
email swfest@bayswan.orgSex Worker Festival
Background
The San Francisco Sex Workers Festival was established in 1999
to provide a forum for the accomplishments of sex worker artists
and filmmakers and to show work about sex workers and sex industries
from around the world. The Sex Worker Festival provides an opportunity
to recognize and honor prostitutes, dancers, porn performers
and other sex workers who have historically been a dynamic part
of arts communities. The Festival includes performance events,
parties and art exhibitions as well as screenings.
From artists' models to muses, from hetaera to geishas, sex
workers have been vital participants in arts communities through
the centuries. Despite their influence on the arts and culture,
polite societies rarely acknowledge the contributions of the
demimonde who have also been painters and poets themselves.
A growing number are working in contemporary media, film and
video, and performing in solo, ensemble theater and in burlesque
revues.
The Sex Worker Festivals have screened approximately two hundred
works and generated much interest from the media. In addition,
the festival presents performances and events. The Sex Worker
Fest promotes sex worker rights, community building, outreach,
as well as educational and cultural empowerment.
Over the past decade, sex worker art and culture festivals have
sprouted up around the globe from Calcutta to Israel to Taiwan
to Montreal, from Portland to Cleveland and Arizona. Sex worker
film, art and performance events span the globe, chronicling
contemporary sexual politics and mores with a vision that penetrates
our hypocrisies. Films focus on: sex; prostitutes' rights; organizing
efforts and working conditions for strippers; more sex; global
sex work and sex work as a labor issue on the international
agenda; sex workers as heroes and heroines; sex workers as saints;
sex workers as jerks and perverts; sex work and gender identities;
queer sex workers; sex education; sex art; sex panic; sexual
orientation; sexual identity; porn and erotica; portraits of
strippers, prostitutes, doms, madams and much more.
May 30th- Muse Gallery 614 Alabama Street San Francisco, CA
94110
May 31st- June 3, 4th-Center for Sex and Culture, 1519 Mission,
San Francisco, CA 94103
June 1st- Diva’s Night Club and Bar,1081 Post St, San
Francisco, CA 94109 http://www.divassf.com/
June 2nd--El Rio-3158 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94110,
http://www.elriosf.com/
June 5th- Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia Street,
San Francisco, CA 94110, http://www.atasite.org/
June 5th- Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom St., San Francisco CA,94103http://www.paradisesf.com/
June 6th- Roxie Cinema, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA
94103, http://www.roxie.com/