QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE

Giulia Louise Steigerwalt’s sophomore feature on the director’s seat sets out to celebrate sexual freedom and denounce censorship… lo and behold… by denying viewers a sexual representation of any sort. It is insulting that a film about pornography should not contain a realistic sex scene, not even an erection. There is one extremely brief frontal nude, but it looks strangely computer generated. This isn’t the first time someone set out to do a film about the pornographic industry while refusing the explicitness that defines the trade. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights did precisely that in 1997, in the hope that a prosthetic penis in the final scene would make up for the shoddy sex portrayals. Diva Futura is even worse, lacking any sort of vigour and vim whatsoever.

During the early 1990s, Illona Staller (Lidija Kordic) becomes a sex symbol, a member of parliament, and an instant global celebrity, all under the artistic name of Cicciolina. She works for pornographic sex studios Diva Futura, owned and managed by porn director Riccardo Schicci (Pietro Castellito), the movie’s central character. Because most of the story is narrated from his perspective, it feels a lot like a biopic (it’s not marketed as such though). Riccardo is aided by his loyal assistant Debora Attanasio (Barbara Ronchi), who helps to care for his 23 cats and the large pet python inside his Rome office. Porn stars Moana Pozzi (Denise Capezza) and Hungarian Eva Henger (Tesa Litvan) add a final touch of colourful to the extravagant environment.

Riccardo is a portrayed as a kind and caring boss. He insists that the woman are “amoral” but never “immoral” (in other words: they lack the “noble” virtues associated with women, but they are not rotten human beings). Moana repeatedly fails at her bid to become a member of parliament. She is trying to follow in the footsteps of Cicciolina, who no longer works for the company. Eva marries Riccardo, and they have two children with a surrogate father (perhaps because Riccardo’s diabetes prevents him from generating viable sperm?). They affectionately call each other “Mamma Bear” and “Papa Bear”, while also enjoying an amicable relationship with the biological father of the children (Eva’s old stalker).

This is a film with blatant contradictions. It sets out to denounce that porn actresses are denied a career, while also denying porn actresses a job opportunity. None of the four female protagonists (Cepezza, Ronchi, Kordic and Henger) have a career in porn. That’s the equivalent to having a biopic of Martin Luther King with a white man in blackface in the lead role. The movie tacitly criticises the Italian government for not recognising pornography as a legal trade, and for its repeated attempts to censor and arrest Ricardo, while censoring pornographic content itself. Diva Futura legitimises the behaviour it set out condemn. Ultimately, this is an anti-pornography movie. A film that exploits pornography for commercial purposes, without offering porn workers anything in return.

Interestingly, the movie reveals that many porn actresses (Cicciolina and Eva included) had to fight for their children, as the Italian state deemed them unfit for motherhood. There is no suggestion that the same applies to their male counterparts. Eva tries to break away from her past in the early ’10s, but the conservative Italian society prevents her from doing it. A television presenter puts it succinctly: “when they see you, they se your p***y”. She is forced to carry on with the trade she now regrets. While she’s not ashamed of her past, she does feel imprisoned.

The filmic limitations are prominent. The acting is lukewarm at best. The script – while comprehensible – unnecessarily zigzags back and forth in time for no apparent reason. And it isn’t just the sex enactments that are awful. A a birth scene is so extremely sanitised that it looks almost like it was taken from a comedy sketch. There is virtually nothing to enjoy here, except perhaps for some cheeky Cicciolina footage at the beginning. Avoid Diva Futura. It’s not sexy, it’s not beautiful, it’s not funny, it’s not moving and it’s resolutely not dirty. Do the dignified thing and watch some real porn instead.

Diva Futura just premiered in the Official Competition of the 81st Venice International Film Festival.