Iranian film on US porn star causes stir at home
"Xsunami: Memories of a Porn Star," produced by hard-line filmmakers, aims to expose "sexual decadence" in the United States but has yet to get screening permission from Iran's Ministry of Culture.
It took three years for Iranian film director Mohsen Aghaei to make “XSunami: Memories of a Porn Star,” a documentary that aims to “expose American sexual decadence” to Iranians. It may take him longer to get the permission of Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance to screen it. So far, the controversial adults-only documentary was only screened for private audiences in Tehran, Esfahan and Mashhad.
Mashhad, ironically, is one of the most conservative cities in Iran known for not allowing concerts to take place, leading those on social media to comment that an adults-only film was screened but concerts are forbidden.
“XSunami,” a 90-minute documentary, is intended to be an American porn star’s first-person account on the events that shaped the sexual revolution in the United States. It talks of the events that impacted the star’s life and that of the American society, including the emergence of magazines such as Playboy, sex education in schools, sexual freedoms and its consequences, such as AIDS, the exploitation of women, the breakup of families and a rise in fatherless children as the result of “unbounded sexual relationships.”
The poster of the documentary shows an aged stripper leaning on a pole in a seductive pose with her body blotted out with a marker pen. On the left, there are black-and-white photos of famous US figures from the late Hugh Hefner, founder Playboy magazine, to former President Barack Obama.
