There is an intriguing absence at the heart of Rosa Friedrich’s hybrid documentary My Friend the Porn Star (screening in Proxima Competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and sold by New Docs).
The director’s friend, the would-be porn star Timo, decided late on during the project that he didn’t want to appear in it any more. Undaunted, Friedrich took the bold decision to keep his body but to use AI to replace his face with that of another man.
“We made an agreement not to talk in so much detail about our relationship but I can say to you that our friendship has a break right now,” Friedrich says of Timo. “I can say he saw the film and he wanted us to make some little changes. We did this. I can only read between the lines, but for me it was a success that he only asked for so few changes.”
And, no, she didn’t think of giving up the project after Timo pulled out, even if it was “very emotional” and briefly felt “catastrophic.”
“One thing is all the energy you have already put into it. Also, you have all the financial pressure. You have to continue. You got some funding – and they expect you to make a movie and so we had to finish anyway – but I really wanted to [as well].”
Besides, this hadn’t been an easy project to finance. The filmmakers had approached the Austrian Film Institute three times without success. “They even sent us a letter saying don’t try again.”
The director speculates that a story about a young male “wanting to make his fantasy come true” might have rubbed up commissioners the wrong way. “People always wanted to see my fantasies. They were interested in the woman, I think. They maybe overlooked that Timo’s approach is so female-related. He is not the typical guy. He is so sensual and sensitive.”
Eventually, though, Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport (BMWKMS) did support the film, and other backers also soon fell in line.
In the film, Friedrich, who doesn’t usually watch porn, is fully supportive of her friend’s dream of starring in a sex movie. We see her trying to help him achieve that dream. In the process, she becomes almost as much the subject as he is. She is the one speaking to trans women, actresses, former opera singers-turned-porn producers as well as to a dominatrix about just what skin flicks mean to them.
“This film, for sure, has so many layers. If you have to give a short synopsis, where do you start? It’s so difficult,” the director reflects. “It wasn’t planned like this….in the beginning, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be in front of camera.”
Once it came to the actual shooting, she realised it would be far easier if she was to appear as a character. That way, she could ask questions and influence goings-on.
Once she had decided to appear on camera, Friedrich deliberately wore colourful, clown-like costumes. “I see myself as a character, as part of the mise-en-scène…and I wanted to have a colourful film.”
Early on, she had fretted that they wouldn’t be able to find anybody at all who would agree to appear opposite Timo in such a project. In fact, the reverse proved the case.
“Maybe I was surprised that we found so many people who wanted to be part of a sex film,” she says. “There were people, and they were nice people, cool people.”
Friedrich may not have had a porn habit herself but she wasn’t the type to judge those who did. “And now I have seen more porn because I did see it for research and stuff. I wasn’t surprised totally [by what I saw} because a lot of things you already know.”
You can see the camaraderie between the participants who all obviously relished being part of the project – and who the director now regards as close friends. One paradox that the film returns to again and again is that its subjects are keen to appear in the film, but they are also nervous and vulnerable.
The device of superimposing somebody else’s face on Timo gives the film an emotional quality that it would have lacked had the main character remained anonymous.
“It was important for me that the emotions got translated into the face and into the voice – and the AI made a pretty good job,” says Friedrich. “I think I want to make enjoyable films, not exhausting ones.”
Certain scenes look very challenging, for example a naked food porn scene involving lots of squidgy fruit in a bath.
“That was so enjoyable,” Friedrich insists. “That was very nice to shoot. For me, maybe if I had had to be in the bath, that wouldn’t have been such a comfortable scene – but people are different and enjoy different things.”
Friedrich wasn’t just making a documentary. She also shot the sex film too. This already has already had its premiere – and the director regards it as a completely separate work to the documentary.
Does she regard her documentary as a feminist movie? “I am not so much into politics…but I think that my approach, my personal way of living, the way I see the world, is probably feminist, even if I wouldn’t describe it like this. I hope it is at least not anti-feminist!”
Friedrich is soon to start work on her debut fictional feature, Who is Afraid of God?, due to shoot in September. “It has nothing to do with sex,” she makes one point very clear. “It’s about friendship and religion.”
Although she was born in East Berlin, Friedrich is now very much part of the Austrian filmmaking landscape. “At least, the Austrian Film Academy picked me right at the first moment. In Germany, they didn’t want me…”
She studied under legendary Austrian auteurs Michael Haneke and Jessica Hausner, both of whom she regards as important mentors. “I always appreciated Haneke in the way that he was so much present at the Film Academy. Many professors who are also famous just come there once or twice a semester but he was there every Tuesday – and he would even stop his shooting to be there on Tuesday. I respect him for that.”
As for Hausner, she is is giving Freidrich advice about her new project.
My Friend The Porn Star is described as a “hybrid documentary.” This allowed its director to take a few creative short cuts. For example, the sauna wasn’t “turned on” when she filmed the women talking inside it. “We made some changes to reality,” she acknowledges. However, she strived throughout to show complete emotional honesty.
The film’s Austrian release is being handled by Stadtkino Verleih.
