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For Immediate Release: April 15, 2011

7th BIENNIAL SAN FRANCISCO SEX WORKERS FILM AND ARTS FESTIVAL

 

Short Description

The San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival provides a forum for the accomplishments of sex worker performers, artists and video makers from San Francisco and around the world. The 10 day long 2011 Festival introduces a number of new events including "Roaming Hookerfest," (AKA Up Against The Wall: Sex Workers in Public Spaces); Whores Bath, a magical healing spa for sex workers; Get The Money Up Front Cabaret with Alotta Boutte'; Hook Collective Sex Worker of Color Art Show; and movies such as "Transfrancisco," "Fridas Informal Economy" and "Devious, Inc." and much, much more.

(San Francisco-May 5, 2011)

The San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival has, since 1999, provided a forum for sex worker film and video makers to screen works about sex workers and the sex industries from around the world. The Festival has expanded to become a vibrant venue for performances, workshops, visual arts, political organizing, skills sharing and ever expanding other events. The Sex Worker Festival recognizes and honors prostitutes, dancers, porn performers and other sex workers, who have since time immemorial been dynamic and integral members of arts communities.

Festival events include:
-"Roaming Hookerfest" Caravan at Mystery Locations Divulged Last-Minute

-"Get The Money Up Front" Cabaret with The Stripping Granny, (as seen on America's Got Talent), Alotta Boutte', Jupiter Knows, Annie Danger and many more

-Annie Sprinkle's "What the F*ck is Ecosex and How Can It Improve Your Sex Business?" A Show-and-Tell

-The Stripping Granny (As Seen on America's Got Talent) at Get The Mopney Up Front Cabaret

-The Art of Webcamming Workshop, benefiting Sex Workers Outreach Project

-Mariko Passion's "Modern Day Asian Sex Slavery: The Musical" 'Because the real enemies are racism, marginalization and ignorance of the lives of sex workers'

"Real Feminists and Human Rights Activists Don't Buy Ashton: How Irrational Panic over 'Modern Day Slavery' Harms Women" by Emi Koyama

The "Roaming Hookerfest," (AKA Up Against The Wall: Sex Workers in Public Spaces), is a traveling outdoor caravan of sex workers, projecting movies and distributing sundries, gifts and safer sex materials through the streets and alleyways of San Francisco (at secret coordinates divulged at the last minute)! Up Against The Wall is proud to be included on Kickstarter, the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. (www.kickstarter.com/projects/18637495/up-against-the-wall-sex-workers-in-public-spaces) The caravan will be joined by burlesque performance ensemble GLITTERACTION! "Using the power of art and sparkle to create beauty and to challenge ourselves and others," also performing in the Festival's "Get The Money Up Front" Cabaret.

For the first time the Sex Worker Festival presents "Whores Bath," a spa and magical healing event for sex workers in San Francisco, "reclaiming our roles as healers." "Whores Bath" contributes to the 21st century lexicon with a new entry in the Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whores%20bath)

The Festival is presenting "Modern Asian Sex Slavery: The Musical," a one woman show by Mariko Passion offering an experiential, ironic, poetic and intense perspective on the stereotypes surrounding sex workers of Asian descent in the context of the current the anti-trafficking discourse. Mariko Passion explores "the real enemies...racism, marginalization and ignorance of the lives of the sex workers."

Hook Collective launches a project parallel to the Festival, "INTERSECTION: Stories Through Art by Sex Workers of Color" curated by Tobias Ex. INTERSECTION challenges the representation of the identity "sex worker," often portrayed as the image of a white empowered middle-class worker. "Because the sex industry encapsulates an expansive range of experiences and identities, the goal of INTERSECTION is to provide an intentional space where the stories and art of people of color in the sex industry take the principal role."

Kicking off the Festival, our own Derrick Hanson, Rent Boy's Hookies Award Winner (Mr. San Francisco 2011, Escort of the Year AND International Best Fetish Escort of the Year http://www.rentboy.com/ListingPopup.aspx?lid=179490 is teaming up with SF's original "musical comedy cabaret porn star" Tom Orr to present LOVE FOR $ALE: A Sweet Talking ~ Street Walking Bawdy Burlesque Cabaret kicking off the festival to benefit the St. James Infirmary (www.stjamesinfirmary.org).

Annie Danger (http://anniedanger.webs.com/) will emcee the "Get The Money Up Front" Cabaret featuring Alotta Boutte', 2011 Leather Alliance Entertainer of the Year Award winner.

Performance artist Annie Sprinkle (www.anniesprinkle.org/ ) presents "What the F*ck is Ecosex and How Can It Improve Your Sex Business?" a show and tell presentation exploring Green Porn, Eco-phone Sex, Nature Fetishes and Eco-whores.

Renowned writer and performance artist, Kirk Read (www.kirkread.com) American Library Association Honor Book Award winner for "How I Learned to Snap" (Penguin/Putnam) presents a workshop on friendship for male sex workers.

Miss Majors of TGI Justice Project (www.tgijp.org) (and of 1969 Stonewall uprising fame) will participate in a workshop with Desiree Alliance (www.desirealliance.org) co-director and prisoners rights activist, Crisitine Sardina on social justice and sex workers' rights. Both are also prisoners rights advocates.

Festival Screenings

Films and videos for the Festival focus on prostitutes' rights; sex work migration and the anti-trafficking framework; sex work as a labor issue on the international agenda; sex workers as artists; queer and trans sex workers; sex work and gender identities; sex education, sex art, porn, fetish culture and erotica; portraits of strippers, prostitutes, doms, and madams, and much more.

Some highlights include:
-"Transfrancisco" by Glenn Davis features Nadia Cabezas (AKA Kitty Kastro, a festival artist who died in an automobile accident in 2007) and many others.
-Fetish musical, "Devious Inc"
-"Mutantes: Punk Porn Feminism" features sex work sheroes Annie Sprinkle, Lydia Lunch, Scarlot Harlot and Michelle Tea
-"Every Ho I Know Says So: A Resource for Lovers, Partners and Sweeties of Sex Workers," by Lusty day, Jackson and the Australian sex worker organization, Scarlet Alliance, was created "as a response to the lack of resources for people looking for advice on how to be good to a sex worker."
-"Titty Fuck Me" starring Trauma Flinstone is a San Francisco style musical montage of campy, sexy bliss by Sion Shankel.

International work includes Good Women of Taipei by Yann-Shan Tsaia with COSWAS (Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters) and number of videos from sexworkerspresent www.sexworkerspresent.blip.tv/ (on blip TV) including a new work from Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers, Bad Rehab, a controversial new music video, protesting the use of raid and rescue as an anti-trafficking measure by Somaly Mam at AFESIP, an anti-sex worker foundation in the region.

"There are a wide array of narrative approaches including video poems, documentaries, feature length fairy tales, and skin flicks," explains curator Laure McElroy. "We have voices from Africa, Canada, Holland, USA, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and the fictional town of New Cityville. We are showing all walks of life, and diverse gender, sexuality, lifestyle, and business models."

Festival founder, Carol Leigh AKA Scarlot Harlot says, "Sex workers have an excellent vantage point from which to view social hypocrisy, expressed in many contexts--by the lawmakers who use their services, then sponsor policies which further criminalize them, to the wanna-be saviors who try to 'rescue them.' This whores-eye-view of society is reflected in this body of work by sex workers."

2011sponsors include the San Francisco Bay Times (www.sfbaytimes.com); the San Francisco Bay Guardian (www.sfbg.com); National Queer Arts Festival (www.queerculturalcenter.org), the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival (www.trannyfest.com); the Center for Sex & Culture (www.sexandculture.org); Media Alliance (www.media-alliance.org); Sex Worker Media Library (www.sexworkermedialibrary.org); International Sex Worker Foundation for Art Culture and Education (www.iswface.org), Sex Workers Outreach Project; Desiree Alliance; SWAAY (Sex Work Activists, Allies and You) the St. James Infirmary (www.stjamesinfirmary.or); Solace, San Francisco (www.solacesf.org); Bound Not Gagged (www.boundnotgagged.com); the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Inc, (www.thesisters.org) and others to be announced.
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If you would like more information or to schedule an interview about this festival or topic, please call (415) 751-1659 or (503) 348-7666.

Producer/Directors- Carol Leigh AKA Scarlot Harlot and Erica Fabulous;Film Curator- Laure McElroy
Telephone: Erica Fabulous; 503-348-7666; Carol Leigh (415) 671-6117
email: swfest@bayswan.org, sexworkerfest@gmail.com
Dates: May 20-29, 2011
Location: Multiple venues in San Francisco: Roxie Cinema, SOMArts Cultural Center; Center for Sex & Culture; Million Fishes Gallery.
Website: http://www.sexworkerfest.com
Schedule: "http://www.sexworkerfest.com/swfest2011/schedule2011.html
Advance Tickets Available: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/profile/60201(Individual events will be listed after May 8, 2011)
Photos for publication: http://www.sexworkerfest.com/swfest2011/hi_resSWFEST_2011.html
Also at http://www.sexworkerfest.com/swfest2011/PressPhotos/

Go to Schedule: 7th Biennial Event May 20-29, 2011