Kamikaze Hearts (Blu-ray)

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Kamikaze Hearts’ received a theatrical release in several countries in the late 1980s, and enjoyed a successful run on the festival circuit, winning an award at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in 1990. Kamikaze Hearts has been brought to Blu-ray by the British Film Institute, with a fantastic transfer coming from a 2K scan of the original camera negative created by American label Kino Lorber and the UCLA Film & Television Archive. A number of thoughtful bonus features are presented, including an audio commentary with Bashore, Mitchell, actors Jon Martin and Howie Gordon, and performance artist Shelly Mars, and a number of in-depth interviews with Bashore, Mitchell, Martin, and more. Also present is a short film by Bashore called ‘Crash’, which is a sketch of the idea of making Kamikaze Hearts as a fictionalised narrative film. Kamikaze Hearts was a tiny-budget 16mm quasi-documentary (in its director's words) that soon became a cult film in queer cinema though has been hard to find in the years since. This restoration reveals an often fascinating time capsule of a time and place and industry which sits on the line between reality and fiction. It's well served by this BFI Blu-ray. John Knoop continues to direct and produce documentary films. He recently published his excellent memoir ‘Fault Lines: A Nomad Filmmaker’s Journal’. It is a fascinating life story with many interesting stories about filmmaking – including further details about ‘Kamikaze Hearts’. You can buy it here.

After her studies, Bashore worked as an intern on George Csicsery’s film Television, The Enchanted Mirror (1981). [3] She also worked as a producer and associate producer in San Francisco at Target Video, Videowest and video collective Optic Nerve. Thomas, Kevin (April 26, 1991). "Movie Review: Sexual Power Fuels Porno World of 'Kamikaze Hearts' ". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 24, 2022 . Retrieved November 24, 2022. While I was in college I did a long-term internship working for the great documentary filmmaker George Csicsery. The extras included in this BFI presentation of the 2K restoration include the original trailers and an audio commentary. In an interview filmed in 2022, Bashore gives a fascinating and often funny account of the making of Kamikaze Hearts.

Kamikaze Hearts (1986)

Sharon Mitchell speaks for twenty-two minutes about how she started her life as a commodity when the Catholic Church sold her to her adoptive parents for ten thousand dollars, what her childhood was like and the impact that frequent visits from nuns had on her as a kid, moving from parochial school to public school, getting into modelling as a teenager, moving to New York City as a seventeen years old and getting married to get out of the house, getting divorced six months later, doing theater and dance work and then hooking up with an agent to cast porno movies on the side. From here, she talks about getting into adult film with That Lady From Rio. She shares memories from her time in the industry and some of the more memorable movies she worked on, meeting Tigr on the set of Sulka's Wedding and her involvement in the transgender community of the day, how her relationship with Tigr turned into a crazy love affair and drug addiction. She talks about the ups and downs of this relationship, how Kamikaze Hearts was born, how the porn industry changed when video came alone, her struggles with addiction, why she decided to get out of the adult film industry, narrowly surviving an assault and how she turned her life around and went to medical school and started a clinic for the porn industry.

Floyd is not the only one who is gone. Precious and Jorge (extras in the film, to whom the film was dedicated) had died before it was even finished. This, in part, compounds the voyeuristic qualities of both pornography and documentary filmmaking. Some of the crew – those hired for work on what they believe is a legitimate porn production – have no idea as to its falsity. Bashore is astutely aware of the power this grants her while filming too – an environment where she can manipulate the elements to a certain extent, leading to some volatile onscreen exchanges. The film in some ways prophesies a shallow world of 'reality programming', algorithmic content, and a cultural landscape of self-absorption where the whole, unequivocal truth is near impossible to discern. Juliet Bashore’s ‘Kamikaze Hearts’ is a startling potent and continuously riveting film with no taboos left to break” – The Village Voice Tigr was a 26 year old adult film actress who’d been appearing in adult films since the early 1980s. Described as a “scrappy gamin” by the LA Times, she specialized in teenage girl roles. By the time she met Bashore, Tigr had started to work as a production assistant on adult film sets in addition to her acting roles. For audiences new to the film, it’s easy to be swept up in its surface level and classification as a documentary – a no-holds-barred examination of the adult entertainment industry in its 'golden age' and the experiences of its performers. But in truth, Kamikaze Hearts is significantly more layered than meets the eye.

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a b c Gregory, Drew Burnett (July 22, 2022). "Lesbian Classic "Kamikaze Hearts" Asks Questions About Porn and Sex, Fiction and Reality". Autostraddle. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022 . Retrieved November 23, 2022. Legendary adult film director Charles Webb (aka Charles De Santos) also makes an appearance as the club owner, as does Vincent Fronczek, one the most prolific adult film still photographers, who is cast to type.