Thank You Columbus - It Was A Great Show!

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Seriously, though - I mean it. Thank you Columbus, Ohio. Let me list the reasons why:

• You have an awesome arts theater, Gateway Film Center, that invited us to be part of their Documentary Week. I mean, come on, that place is bad ass. If you live there and you don't take advantage of it, you really should start. As I said before. I'm jealous.

AnC (Barnaby, Trisha, Charlie LtoR) with our poster at the Gateway. I kiss the picture of our cast members because I love our cast members.

• You gave us a big ol' group of totally cool people who decided to come out to watch SSL on a chilly Wednesday night. They were super engaged through the movie. Seriously, like I said before, I LOVE watching SSL with a big group of people. They laugh and react a lot, and I don't know if this is strange or not, but it makes me smile and laugh seeing all the things that make them laugh - it really is super fun. 

• Almost all the crowd stayed for the Q&A until we were kicked out...and even after (Thanks again for the kind words and discussion; Mark, really interesting sexual educator from Brooklyn who's name I can't remember right now, and nice OSU Sexuality student!)

• The crowd was, for real, really awesome. They even laughed at a few subtly weird things we have in the movie that we hadn't heard crowds get that into before - like when they saw me writing in a diary with Prince Valiant hair while our cat, Ramona, sniffed around behind the bed post. I love when people just melt into the weirdness of it. 

• Our stay was great - the AirBnB place was fantastic, and the food at Katalina that the AirBnB people suggested was top notch, ya'll!

• You have a super cool guy named Robert Pyatt (who I found out was originally from Indianapolis, so we here in Indy will take a little credit for this) who kinda randomly heard about Science Sex and the Ladies a good while ago (he thinks maybe through another Indy area film director, Kate Chaplin?) and decided to watch it. Then while watching it, saw all the things in it that we so very much hoped people would see in it. He saw we were serious about the science we put in it. He saw how we used on-screen citation for transparency and saw that isn't something other documentaries are doing. He saw that the points we were making were things that needed to be heard but weren't being said like this anywhere else, and he saw we did our darndest for it to be entertaining.  He then, since he happened to be working with Gateway to bring in science programming, championed us. Talking with him at the show last night and hearing what he said about our film when he introduced it really meant a lot, probably more than he knows. This movie is a strange beast to program, and what I've found is that it really only gets attention from festivals and venues when it has a champion on the inside - Robert was one of those champions. He popped up for us out of the blue, and gave our movie a chance. We will always have a special place in our hearts for him.

• Also, let me just go back to Mr. Robert Pyatt He also really researched into the things written about this movie, my blog, and interviews and podcast I've done. He was really informed and engaged about the movie and this topic. He actually really appreciated the depth of the scientific research and integrity I strive for with this stuff. Honestly, it just felt awesome when I realized that about him last night. It makes me feel like the time and energy I spend writing about and researching all this lady-gasm stuff is worth it at least a little. Oh - and I feel like the work he put into getting SSL shown in Columbus, and the excitement for which he promoted and talked about it, well, by golly, I think he deserves to be a true blue Orgasm Equality Ally. So, you are now on the list, good Mr. Robert Pyatt. Thank you again, and check it out HERE!

Okay, that's about it. It was a fabulous experience from top to bottom. For those of you that were there, please tell your friends about it. Talk, talk, talk about this stuff.

And here are some links to things we discussed:

Here's a list of SSL reviews, where I rate depictions/discussion of lady-gasm in movies and give vulva ratings

Here's a list of Scientific articles about lady-gasm that I've reviewed so far

Here's my critique of a recent BBC article on female orgasm

Here's a list of other people out there doing the good work for Orgasm Equality

Here's were you can rent or buy a streaming version of the movie

Oh - and remember we are always willing to lend out the movie for free if you have a group you'd like to show it to, and I'm always open to talking about this topic. In fact I love talking about this topic. Feel free to contact me at trisha att ancmovies dott comm

Peace out Columbus! You've been great!

Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014 - SSL Indy Premiere!!!!

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I'm kinda busy, and although I have a bunch of blog post ideas (super substantial ones, people) I really want to do, I haven't had enough time to sit and really get to them. So, I'm going to write about something quickly...the upcoming Indianapolis Premiere of Science, Sex and the Ladies (Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014 doors 6:30 movie 7:30). This premiere thing is one of the reasons I haven't had much time lately, so it seems appropriate.

Anyway, I've been a-hustlin' trying to get the word out, and it's been going pretty well. I think it's going to be a good crowd. I have to give my sister big props on that. She's a monster advertiser me, and I love that silly bitch for it. She's ride or die all the way. Seriously, it's really cool to have people around that support me like this. I love you Mel, and I love all those other ab fab friends and cast members who are hard core repping for this movie out there. It's pretty awesome.

I'm getting excited, and if any of you out there are from Indy or have Indy friends, I'd love to see you or your lovely pals. We'll have some good brews there from Scarlet Lane Brewery. We picked the Brewery because it's in McCordsville, where we all at AnC went to high school (well, the school is technically in Fortville, but they're pretty much the same town), and because there's a woman brewing there, which is not as common as it should be...and because the beer is really good. I had a cinnamon sugar beer that tasted like some bad ass cinnamon toast. It was buttery and everything. It was a dark beer through, and I know not everyone is into them, but if you are...

Point is - I'm excited about Thursday, and If you are around, come out to the show. Tickets are only $6 bucks. Get em' HERE.

India vs. Australia vs. Canada vs. UK: SSL Small Screening International Premiere

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As you might have known, Science, Sex and the Ladies is making its way around the country doing small private screenings, hosted by people who just want to share this movie and the conversation this movie evokes with their friends. It's been super cool talking with all the people who've contacted me about these screenings - finding out where they heard about it, hearing about them and their interesting endeavors, and then sending the movie off to their neck of the woods. We've sent to Brooklyn, Michigan, Oregon, Los Angeles, San Francisco, D.C, right here in Indy and more. Then, all of the sudden, I started getting some international inquiries, and I was a little flabbergasted.

They mostly seemed to find us through Reddit posts and the write-up SSL got on the In Bed with Married Women blog - so much thanks to Jill Hamilton over there. The first was from India, then Australia, then Canada, then the UK. All these women were just so damn cool and funny and gung-ho about female sexuality. I love that I have the chance to meet them, and I love that one of them will be hosting SSL's international debut.

India and Australia went out the same day, but India's took longer than we thought to get there. We were biting our nails waiting, but just Thursday, I got word that the eagle had landed. Australia received their copy about a week earlier. Canada should get the drop any day now, and the UK has about 7 days left (She's on holiday anyway, so I fear the Brits ain't gonna win this one.)

Honestly, I feel that India is the most tenacious, but as we all know, getting people together all at once can take more than tenacity and determination...sometimes, my friends, it takes time...so who knows what will happen. I will, of course, keep you posted. And, ya know, no matter what, each of these women will be hosting the premiere for their own country, so at least there's that.

Minneapolis and Louisville, SSL Is Coming To You!

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It took all the power in my being to write "coming" in the title instead of "cumming." There's no reasonable explanation why I'd want to do that. It's not really funnier or more clever, and it doesn't really even make sense. If I maybe titled the post "Minneapolis and Louisville, SSL Is Cumming Inside Your Theaters" or "Minneapolis and Louisville, SSL Can't Wait To Cum Into Your Town," or "Minneapolis and Louisville, SSL Will Make you Cum Right Away To A Theater Near You" - I mean any of those make better use of "cum" vs. "come" than the title I picked and would simply make more sense in a pun sort of way.

Anyway, I am regularly giggly inside my head whenever the word "come" is used, no matter how innocent. That's just true. It's the same way when I hear "fish taco." I can't even believe that people say it with a straight face. I just truly can't fathom how people go about their lives thinking it's perfectly sensible to order fish tacos and then proceed to eat them without even a hint of joke-iness. It's insane to me. Maybe part of that is that I really didn't actively realize that fish tacos existed as a valid menu item (and not just a crude term for lady bits) until I was about 22 years old - and I will not have you judge me for that. I've lived in land-locked Indianapolis my entire life, and I'm not a big seafood eater anyway. I have friends who feel the same way (although probably less intensely), so I know I'm not insane...although it may indicate the level of worldliness and class of my close companions.

That was not the point of this post though. WE HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED INTO OUR FIRST 2 FESTIVALS!

The Minneapolis Underground Film Festival in, well, Minneapolis obviously. It will be taking place from Thursday October 2nd thru Sunday October 5th.

The Imaginarium Film Festival in Louisville. It's actually part of the Imaginarium creative writing convention, which is kind of cool, and it is held Friday, Sept. 19th thru Sunday, Sept. 21st.

We don't have the specific details on the times our movie will be playing, but we'll post as soon as we know. So, if you are one of my very mysterious readers who lives in or near Minneapolis or Louisville, tell ALL your friends and caravan down to the theater to catch Science, Sex and the Ladies! And if you do get out to see it, say hi. The other 2 co-directors and I will be there, and we'd love to talk or hang out, or grab a drink - we don't care, we won't have to go to work the next day. Seriously. I'd love to meet you.

There will be more announcements in the next weeks and months for showings around the country. We're gonna start touring with this damn movie. Keep an eye out. We might be cumming to your town!

Cast And Crew Screening!

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Well, the cast and crew screening of Science, Sex and the Ladies was last night, so this marks the end of my blog once a day post marathon. I know you'll miss me, but I'll be back 2 or 3 times a week. Also, more good news...the screening went really well. I mean it's cast and crew, so they are a lot of people we know, and they're gonna be at least polite. So, I realize we may not be getting the whole story, but I'll tell you what, people were really excited about it. I got texts and emails from 5 different people on their way home letting me know about ideas they had for more group showings. We are encouraging people to share the movie in small groups anywhere from their own homes to art galleries to meeting halls to bars. Anyway, it looks like we may have some coming up including a "silent screening" and the first SSL Dude screening. So I feel pretty happy about the whole thing. I'll keep you posted about how the small screenings are going. Till we meet again...

AnC right before the SSL cast and crew screening

I'm So Excited! Tonight's the Cast and Crew Screening!

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Today is the cast and crew screening for Science, Sex and the Ladies. I'm so excited, and because of this, I embedded the Pointer Sisters singing the song "I'm So Excited" below. Enjoy it. It really does get ya pumped up. Seriously, though, I really am excited. This will be the first real screening. The cast has been waiting about 5 years to see this thing, and I'm really pumped to see them all again. As we speak, I am at my AnC partner Barnaby's house typing this pout real quick while Barnaby and Charlie load the food and goodie bags into the car. We'll be headed over to the venue in about 5 minutes Holla! I'll put up pictures tomorrow.

p.s. YouTube won't let me embed the actual Pointer Sisters video. :(

Assembly line Fun with AnC Movies

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Today was a good day. Some family birthday stuff for luch including good pizza and cherry pie. Then some old school AnC assembly line fun. You see, we here at AnC Movies have a long tradition of doing weird holiday cards for our mailing list that are ridiculously hands-on intensive. There's always been a lot of folding, cutting, hooking, signing - one year there was a putting on lipstick and kissing the envelope part of the assembly line. There's always a lot of fun, memories, farts, bitching. It's a good day. The thing is, we've kinda been busy with the movie the last couple years and have neglected our AnC holiday card duties.

We're still neglecting them (although we have one in the plans for the near future), but we are getting ready for our cast and crew screening of the movie this Thursday, so we were assembling goodie bags and also getting all the prizes ready to ship for Kickstarter backers, so it felt a lot like the ol' card makin' days.

We're watching the Olympics too, cause why not? Who doesn't love figure skating and snow boarding competition once a year? No one sane - that's who.

Anyway, enjoy some pics, and I'll be back tomorrow.

Me and B doin' the damn thing

Charlie showing off the pieces of a Kickstarter package

Barney's cat Yancy sleeping on things we need to use

Our 2nd Test Screening!

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This past Saturday we invited a small group of 20 and 30 somethings to watch our still slightly unfinished movie Science, Sex and the Ladies. Just like at our last screening, our participants filled out a questionnaire directly after the movie and then took part in a 1/2 hour discussion. It was a great discussion. We got great feedback on the written responses, and we even had some people email later with more feedback. In case any of you are reading this - I want to thank you again for taking the time to help us out.

So after both screenings, what is my overall take? To be honest, I just can't quite figure out how to talk about them. Overall I'm quite happy with the results and definitely got important and useful feedback. I want to just stick with the simple positives of it. I want to say that I heard from people both anonymously and face to face that they were really moved by the movie, that it spoke to the frustration and confusion they are currently experiencing in their sexual lives, that they learned some basic things about their sexual functioning, that the movie made them look at the history of their sexual relationships with a whole different perspective, and I wouldn't be lying. I did receive that sort of feedback. In fact almost everyone said the movie reflected their own experiences, but it's not really the whole story.

There was the couple of people who felt I didn't need to be so harsh about negating the vaginal orgasm. I expected that - actually I expected that there would be a lot more of that than there was. There were those who said they already knew most of it. I expected I'd get that from a certain demographic. There were also those worried about the hetero-centric nature of the movie. I knew that was coming also. All those things were calculated risks for us - things we thought about. There was also just basic criticism about areas that seemed too long or repetitive or too fast - a scene that was confusing - stuff like that, and those were expected too and quite useful to hear.

 But there was a weirder thing that I didn't see coming. I probably should have, but I didn't. I don't know if I can fully explain it, but I'll say it was feedback that seemed confused - confused I guess mostly because it focused very little on the movie itself and more on things that the individual people thought were important about the general subjects of sexuality, sociology, feminism, education - that sort of thing. It was a critique of ideas assumed to be in the movie that actually weren't at all; or it was a clear misunderstanding of points other people found repetitive; or it was a running annoyance about one particular thing that colored all the answers on a questionnaire. I know the movie is a lot of info, and I know that it is not a perfect information giving machine, but I feel like there was criticism and then there was this weird criticism that seemed to me to stem more from personal interests than about the actual movie. This weird criticism wasn't necessarily more harsh or anything. It was just kinda bizarre, and it took me aback. I mean we immediately thought, "what did we do wrong to get these reactions we had no intention of getting." Yes, there is a shit ton of information and a good amount of our personal taste in SSL, and we know some of it's bound to be ignored or misconstrued. I think there is another thing at play here, though, and I should have been more prepared for it given some of the situations I've encountered during the making of this movie and during the writing of this blog over the years.

We are messing with incredibly personal subjects. Everyone has experience with their own and sometimes others' sexuality and pleasure and gender. Some of us take great pride in our sexual persona or gender identity. Some of us hold such shame and confusion about it, and for most of us, our very identity is heavily intertwined with our sexuality and gender. We are going to get a really wide array of reactions, and among all the more positive ones, they might be weird, irrational, surprising, or insanely maddening, and I'm gonna be okay with that because sex and gender in this world have a whole lotta weird baggage. Plus, I think it'll be mostly ok. The truth is, even the people who had weird reactions and the people who were bothered by things like too much anti-vaginal orgasm talk were actually overall positive about the movie and almost everyone felt other peoples should see it. So, yeah - the test screenings gave us some great detailed insight that we're definitely moving forward with, but maybe the most exciting thing I took away is that this movie really does strike something - whatever it may be - with people, and they seem to want to talk about it. Truth is, that's all I ever wanted - to get a real conversation started in this culture about the female orgasm and its impact on our understanding of female sexuality. Simple, right? So, yeah, this whole putting a movie out and hearing what people have to say about it is going to be a scary mixed bag, but I have faith it's gonna be worth it.