“We’re All Pornographers Now”: Juliet Bashore on Her 2K-Restored Kamikaze Hearts

Any director whose bio includes being fired from “an animated children’s film for Miramax titled The Great North Pole Elf Strike for portraying Santa’s elves as gay” is my kind of filmmaker. And Juliet Bashore, of the aforementioned dismissal, also has the added distinction of being the force behind the prescient time capsule of the pre-gentrified San Francisco sex industry, Kamikaze Hearts (1986). That “fictionalized documentary” (“hybrid” was a term yet to be coined) depicted the doomed relationship between lovestruck Tigr (also a producer on the film) and the object of her adoration, gender fluid “(nonbinary” was likewise not yet coined) porn star Sharon Mitchell, aka “Mitch.” It’s a film that certainly defied expectations back then — the period’s average mainstream movie contained hotter sex scenes — as well as now, with the riveting psychodrama’s upcoming rerelease in a 2K restoration by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. So to learn all about the journey from underground to establishment, Filmmaker reached out to the unconventional film artist (and VR pioneer) a week before, via Kino Lorber, the doc’s nationwide rollout, starting with a May 13th NYC debut at BAM and May 20th in LA at Alamo Drafthouse.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.