Shortbus [2006] dir John Cameron Mitchell

Shortbus is a 2006 comedy-drama film written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, writer/director/star of the play and film Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The plot revolves around a sexually diverse ensemble of emotionally challenged people trying desperately to connect in post-9/11, bohemian New York City. The characters converge on a weekly Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. According to Mitchell, the film attempts to "employ sex in new cinematic ways", and it includes a variety of explicit scenes of sexuality.



It was released in North America in October 2006 by THINKFilm after premiering in May at the Cannes Film Festival, and it played in over 25 countries, winning multiple awards at the Athens, Zurich, and Gijon Film Festivals. Howard Gertler and Tim Perell received an Independent Spirit Award as Producers of the Year. The film was released to DVD in North America on March 13, 2007. The DVD features a comprehensive documentary, "Gifted and Challenged: the Making of Shortbus" (Director/Producer M. Sean Kaminsky), the vérité-style "How to Shoot Sex: A Docu-Primer", a number of deleted scenes (including a dropped subplot about a character who is the Bush twins' personal assistant), as well as a filmmaker/cast audio commentary.



Some have branded the film "pornographic". In response, Mitchell says that the dictionary defines porn as "material created and viewed for the primary purpose of sexual arousal," and argues that the sex in Shortbus is often purposefully "de-eroticized" to "remove the cloud of arousal to reveal emotions and ideas that might have been obscured by it".



? Sex, like music, is a universal language. We want to use it to introduce character, evoke emotion, propel the plot. Sex is also the funniest thing I know. How the hell do we find ourselves in those positions? - Mitchell ?



Lee was nearly fired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for which she hosts a radio program Definitely Not the Opera because of her participation in several unsimulated sexual scenes in the film. Ultimately, she retained her job as the CBC relented in the face of support for Lee from the public[1], as well as from celebrities such as Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Stipe, and Yoko Ono.[2]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortbus




http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367027/