Featured Image Credit: Revolution Films
Topics: TV and Film, Film, Sex and Relationships
Joe Harker
The director of an x-rated film which contained real life sex scenes said that when it released, people were so interested that they had to put on more cinema screenings to meet demand.
Almost all of the time that you see people getting it on during a movie, it's still just actors pretending - but on some very rare occasions, you're watching people actually having sex.
It has happened in a few films, and of course that tends to make things a tad controversial.
In fact, the lead actress in this particular movie was a bit concerned about having her name in the credits at first, and asked only to be identified by her character's name.
Advert
Her mum was also worried and said she would 'pray for her every day, twice a day', but eventually Margo Stilley came to embrace her role in the film 9 Songs.
The film follows a series of racy encounters between American exchange student Lisa (Stilley) and British scientist Matt (Kieran O'Brien).
There's a whole load of sex scenes between the two, including one where O'Brien's character ejaculates.
The decision to include unsimulated sex scenes in the film ended up being controversial, but director Michael Winterbottom defended his decision and said that when the film was released they had to open many more screenings because of the interest.
Advert
Speaking to the BBC back in 2005, he said: "It's not porn! You watch a porn movie and then you watch this, it's obviously not porn.
"We were on at the San Sebastian Film Festival, we won Best Cinematography.
"When we showed the film in market at Cannes - we were showing it because we needed to raise money to complete the film as we were funding it ourselves - the sales people were saying: 'Well, you're not going to get any attention, you're just going to go out in the small market screenings'.
"We had a small market screening and people were queuing to try and get into it, they had to put on extra screenings, and we had more press coverage than all the films in competition put together.
Advert
"Critics can say what they like, but they all want to go and see it!"
It turns out that people really like watching other people having sex, and all of the controversy proved to be a decent little bit of publicity for the movie.
It was met with some complaints when it released, to the point that there was pressure on the UK government not to allow the film to release without cuts.