MANCHESTER, N.H. – Wasteland has announced the release of Sex Addiction In The Viral Age – A Corona Virus Film, which the studio calls a “ripped-from-the-headlines short film,” starring Sicilia Ricci and Wasteland studio head and director Colin Rowntree. Ricci and Rowntree also collaborated on the script

In the short, “a sex-addicted female epidemiologist working on a COVID-19 pandemic becomes anxious, then aroused, about the state-mandated ‘social distancing’ protocols.”

Ricci plays Dr. Sarah Connor, a scientist with a Ph.D. in public health who works as an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Normally, Sarah’s sex life is a voracious one, in which she engages a variety of random sex partners to satiate her sex addiction.

“Now stuck like everyone else at home, staring at a screen in an endless cycle of Slack messages, SMSs, DMs and video screens-within-the-screen, Sarah decides to also take her sex life online,” Wasteland said in its release announcement. “Her strategy: while on cam, do as the cam girls do.”

Sarah’s initial idea – to do naughty cam shows for a selected number of trusted partners – suddenly goes awry, as nothing on the internet is truly private and nobody is to be trusted.

When Dr. Jack Moriarty (Rowntree), a program coordinator for the Surgeon General in Washington DC, slips into Sarah’s DMs “the lines between personal and public, and work and play, become hopelessly blurred.”

Ricci, a Wasteland veteran recently seen in the George Bernard Shaw/“My Fair Lady” parody Fystmalion, said she had a personal connection to the project.

“Being that I do have a PhD and work in the field of viral immunology, this was a fun script to write,” Ricci said. “Colin called me up on a Sunday and by that evening we had a workable script.”

The creative collaborators thought they were merely working in the now popular genre of near-future dystopia, but then “reality stuck in its sullied little hand.”

“We almost thought the whole thing was a wrap, when Colin’s doctor advised against traveling,” Ricci said. “But through the lovely advent of technology, we were able to get it done remotely via the help of Skype and FaceTime!”

Ricci said the story intrigued her, given the whole reason she went the route she did in education was because of the 1994 non-fiction best-seller The Hot Zone, which was recently adapted into a 2019 National Geographic miniseries.

The subject of that book, the 1989 Ebola outbreak in Zaire, said Ricci, “happened when I was 6, and the carryover of that into media over the next few years definitely caught my attention. All my inquisition quickly was focused on viruses and parasites.”

Rowntree said he was “supposed to fly out to St. Louis, where Sicilia is, to direct it, using her cameraman [Director of Photography OHG Photo] who lives there.”

“But, checking with my doctor, he said, as I am turning 61 next month and am a smoker, it would not be totally wise to make this trip,” Rowntree explained.

The veteran BDSM specialist said he then had a “voila!” moment: He decided to direct the entire shoot from his office in New Hampshire over Skype video/audio chat using a phone on a tripod that Ricci and had in St. Louis.

“We got the entire thing shot in one full day and it is looking like it will be a winner,” Rowntree said, adding that he turned around the film in 5 days, while both he and his star were practicing social distancing.

“A virus porn film that is serious in nature, has a lot of kinky solo girl sex, and offers an alternative to the current flood of gonzo porn coming out with people in gas masks and hazmat suits,” Rowntree added, “what’s not to like?”

As a producer and director, Rowntree said he truly believes that adult films can be a vehicle for messaging on serious topics such as the current pandemic, climate change, the corruption of the news media and other hot button issues in society and culture.

“It will be interesting to see what happens to the porn industry as this outbreak progresses,” Ricci said. “Hopefully performers will be able to make a lucrative switch to cam shows and selling media online. One thing is for sure, thanks to this movie, all the sex addicts in quarantine will know where to go for all their ‘medical’ needs – Wasteland.com.”

“That’s right,” Rowntree added, “Wasteland.com: Just what the doctor ordered, since 1994.”

Sex Addiction In The Viral Age – A Corona Virus Film is now available at Wasteland.com.