NEW YORK – When the news broke that a Miley Cyrus video had been entered in the NYC Porn Film Festival, like about a billion other people I immediately checked the festival’s website. Upon arrival, the first thing I noticed was the enormous “Pornhub Presents” banner, which led me to a question: Does the festival need permission to show the video?
The thought was half in jest. Presumably, Pornhub is merely sponsoring the festival, not supplying it with “films” uploaded by Pornhub users, so there’s no reason to suspect the festival would accept all submissions, no questions asked. Right?
Fast forward about 48 hours, and the NYC Porn Film Festival had lost its headline star. Depending on whom you believe, nobody connected with the former Disney star was aware her video was to be aired during an event openly billing itself as a “porn film festival.”
“Miley was proud to make a film with acclaimed filmmaker Quentin Jones,” a Cyrus spokesperson said. “She did not instigate this festival submission and is not participating in any way.”
Simon Leahy, the festival’s organizer, blamed the misunderstanding on Cadence Films, the production company behind the video, saying the company “didn’t do their due diligence.”
“We asked to show it at the festival,” Leahy said of the video. “Because the word ‘porn’ is involved, basically the media has just sensationalized it and turned it into a click-bait story.”
On Monday, Leahy told the New York Post that Cyrus had submitted the video to the festival, claiming she had heard about the festival through mutual friends. Leahy showed the Post emails confirming he had Cadence’s permission to show the video.
Cyrus’s people, however, say Leahy did not play it straight in his emails, describing the festival as a “shorts screening at the artist ran [sic] space Secret project Robot,” an artist-operated space in Bushwick, NY. The emails reportedly contained no link to the film festival website, and Cyrus’s representatives have indicated nobody used the word “porn” in describing the festival, either.
Leahy blamed the ruffled feathers not on subterfuge, but “submitter’s remorse,” so to speak.
“Obviously the story went totally viral, and that freaked everyone out,” Leahy said.
So, to sum up: A film festival sponsored by a website that has been accused of making its fortune largely by distributing copyrighted works without the permission of the relevant rights-holders now has lost its most buzz-worthy submission due to either bad faith or a lack of due diligence…but not without generating a cavalcade of online publicity in the process.
You simply can’t make up this kind of shit.
Before we get cynical and start thinking Leahy wanted the publicity all along, it’s important to note he did say he and his festival “don’t want to cause any harm to Miley and her image.”
We know we can trust Leahy when he says this, because as he notes, despite using the word porn in the name of the event, “it’s like we are an art festival.”
“Even though we’re using the word porn, we’re not some cheap L.A. porn award festival,” Leahy said.
Damn right. Get it straight, all you hype-oriented media sensationalists: Leahy’s erotic film symposium is no cheap, shoddy porn industry awards-show production.
Seriously, just how dumb are all you people in the media, anyway?
I mean, c’mon — it’s not like the NYC Porn Film Festival is sponsored by a tube site or anything.
