FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2020 REVIEW! I will be the first person to tell you that I know next to nothing about the adult film industry. I’m not saying that for any kind of judgmental reason, I just don’t. So I went into Morgana with relatively little knowledge of what I was getting myself into. Morgana Muses is an Australian woman in her 50’s who also happens to be a pornographic actress and director. She didn’t start her career until she was in her 40’s.
It might be hard for some people to believe that a documentary about a pornographer can be inspiring, and those people are most likely some that I would find incredibly boring. Morgana Muses was suffering from extreme depression from being in a loveless marriage and was dead-set on killing herself. She decided to hire an escort for her one last hurrah, and it was a life-changing experience. She realized that she missed the feeling of being touched by another person, and she felt like she had something to live for again. She started watching pornography around this time and decided to make a film with her and her escort John O. Duty Bound won the Petra Joy award at the Berlin Porn Film Festival. Thus started her brand new career in feminist pornography.
“…Muses is an Australian woman in her 50’s who also happens to be a pornographic actress and director.”
Morgana’s family disowned her upon finding out about her new career, but she built a new family within the Berlin adult film community. Unfortunately, she ran out of money and had to move back to Australia, which threw her into another depression. She came out of it with the help of her chosen family and continued to make films. Morgana Muses is an inspiring person because she chose a very unconventional path to gain happiness and chooses to follow her heart instead of being closed off in a life that she could no longer stand living.
Morgana’s cinematographer and editor, Josie Hess, teamed up with Isabel Peppard to show us four years in the life of Morgana Muses. We meet filmmakers she’s worked with like Anne Brownfield and those that inspired her like Petra Joy. We see snippets of a few of her films, such as New Tricks, I Am Whole, Having My Cake, and many more. Needless to say, Morgana is a film that only adults should see. Not saying that it is full of hard-core pornography, but there is enough nudity and other content that parents wouldn’t want to have to explain to their kids.
However, it is mostly about Morgana as a person and not about sex, even though sex is a lot of what makes Morgana Muses who she is. It’s more about overcoming the identity that family creates for you and becoming yourself and that it’s never too late to do this. Please do yourself a favor and get inspired by someone who defeated the past to become her most authentic self.
Morgana premieres at the 2020 edition of the Fantasia Film Festival.
"…chose a very unconventional path to gain happiness and chooses to follow her heart instead of being closed off..."
