An Amateur Porno Set Off a Federal Witch Hunt

Summary: Young man has a passion & dream to make movies. He has a thriving business but it's not enough to fund the movie. His friends agree to fund a movie but with a clause - it must be a porno movie.

He researches existing literature and it sucks. He won't make porn. He'll make a real movie that also has explicit sex.

He shoots normal scenes first, and sex scenes later. Sex scenes has some issues like the actors unable to get erection and him not knowing how to direct the scenes.

Movie is finished. He edits, distribution says he must include at least one lesbian scene, some cum shots... things he'd cut out.

Movie is a success in theaters and gets sold out every single day and then all hell breaks loose. The police comes after him. Lots of complaints were sent to officials - some by people who hadn't actually watched the movie.

The film maker had used a property owned by the church without permission and the church was the force behind the investigations.

The court case was a sham. The investigators invokes anti-fornication laws 100s of years old. And the cops (probably) sets the film maker up.

One of the lead actors commits suicide just as the case becomes a federal one. The government takes all the earnings of the film, fines him, bans him from film making for a few years and gives him a suspended jail sentence.

He was clearly an amateur since he had never made any kind of movie.

But his intent was to make a professional/commercial film.

They are not necessarily disjoint concepts.

To top that off, at the end of the interview he gives himself a humorous critique suggesting he found his own work failed to make the professional grade.

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I wouldn't classify as "amateur" a commercial movie where the lead roles are played by professional actors, but that may be just me. The downvotes I got agree with you. (Being a bad movie may make it look "amateurish", but that's something different.)

How unapologetic the prosecutor still is offends me. Trying to use anti fornication laws from 1796 and knowing it's a miscarriage of justice? Yet still thinks it's the right decision.