The following is an open letter from independent filmmaker Shannon Shea.
I would like the opportunity to address the independent filmmakers, critics, and fans of the genre. I am too vulgar for the New Orleans Film Festival. Wow. I have been reading FILMTHREAT.COM for some time and have been exposed to reviews and stories about all sorts of films that involve all sorts of subject matters: Deviant Sex, Ultra-Violence, Rape, Cross-Dressing, Homosexuality, B********y, Sadomasochism, Child Abuse, Animal Abuse, Drug Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, Religious Zealots, Freaks, and Politicians. Most of these films have been accepted into one film fest or another and many of them have enjoyed positive press from this forum.
I have recently been overlooked at the NEW ORLEANS FILM FESTIVAL, which isn’t surprising since my film has been raising eyebrows since the cast/crew screening. What could be so questionable that it would make adults, grown-ups in a world that markets underage female performers as objects to ravish sexually? Anal sex? Oral sex? Lesbian midgets with poultry fetishes? Republicans in black-face shooting heroin while having nuns eat pork and beans off of their a***s? No, try this: a can of tuna fish and a watermelon. Yes, that’s it folks – the cinematic image that has female film festival judges running from the room in ABJECT SHOCK! Wow, considering what efforts my peers are offering you’d think I was Pat Boone.
Yes, there is an off-color joke in which a character in my film drains a can of tuna fish onto a watermelon before she uses it to give a blind man a “lap dance.” OH MY GOD, have you all been turned to stone????? Sorry! That’s just DAMN VULGAR of me! And yet, I was told that two female judges at the New Orleans (land of the cross-dressing, night club, drug-infested French Quarter filled with drunk, topless college girls all shot on video) Film Festival were “offended” and my film was overlooked. Well, here’s my official response:
a.) That scene was improvised by my female actress and NOT scripted by me – so the jokes on you, ladies and ^ b.) WHO GIVES A S**T…..get over it! It’s just a damn joke! Like Ben Stiller standing in a doorway with CUM HANGING OFF OF HIS EAR! CUM! MALE MILK! SEED! WHATEVER!
I guess I just don’t know where “the line” is and it would be helpful if someone out there could spell it out for me.
Sincerely, ^ Shannon Shea ^ Writer/Director/Producer ^ “BLIND PASSION”
P.S. – SEE “BLIND PASSION” the film TOO HOT for the New Orleans Film Festival!
You can bet your a*s we’ll have a review of “Blind Passion” as soon as possible.
