Now here’s something truly San Francisco. This event will be held Today till Sunday at the Roxie Cinema 3117 16th St. San Francisco, CA
From artists’ models to muses, from hetaira 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 San Francisco Sex Workers Festival was established in 1998 to provide a forum for the accomplishments of sex worker film and video makers and to screen works by and about sex workers and the sex industries from around the world. The Sex Worker Festivals have screened nearly two hundred works and generated much interest in the media. In addition, the festival presents performances and events. The Sex Worker Fest promotes sex worker rights, community building, outreach, educational and cultural empowerment.
The 2007 Sex Worker Film & Arts Festival will feature films by and about sex workers, live performance by sex worker artists and many other events. This year our festival is held in conjunction with the “Desiree Alliance Sex Worker Convergence†(see desireealliance.org), “We, Asian Sex Workers” art exhibit curated by Gennifer M. Hirano, Asian Princess and educational events including School for Johns and Whore College. In 2005 we produced a harm reduction panel, and in 2007 we are planning community based events to address recent issues which effect our communities.theater.
Over the past decade sex worker art and culture festivals have sprouted up around the globe from Calcutta 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.
The Sex Worker Film and Video festival has screen over nearly films since 1998. 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.
