Sharon Mitchell, Tigr Mennett, Jon Martin, Sparky Vasque
Plenty of films play on the dividing line between fact and fiction, reality and rumours, but Juliet Bashore’s pioneering queer docufiction applied a particularly raw, DIY vision to the form.
Kamikaze Hearts tells the story of Tigr Mennett and her (real-life) porn star girlfriend Sharon Mitchell, working in San Francisco’s sex industry. Tigr is directing a parody of Carmen starring her partner, and filming is not going smoothly: manipulation, abuse, and the excesses of the adult entertainment world in the ‘80s are everywhere on set. But present too, is tenderness and care. In the course of filming their relationship mutates and shifts, documentary and drama blurring between each other.
Bashore’s film is a multi-layered document of a unique time and space where polysexuality, women’s liberation, punk rock and porn collapsed into each other, as radical and shocking today as on its initial release.
Kamikaze Hearts is part of the ‘Down & Dirty: American D.I.Y. Restored’ strand at this year’s Cinema Rediscovered (26-30 July 2023) and part of its UK-wide touring programme, which features favourable booking terms, new marketing assets, and access to additional audience development support – supported by the BFI, awarding funds from National Lottery.