Shortbus (2006)

Real sex. Real intimacy. Real risk.

John Cameron Mitchell ran an open casting call, then handed his cast an invitation: be as honest as you can, about everything. What they made together is Shortbus. Follow a constellation of lonely people who all find their way to an underground salon where almost anything goes. Explicitly sexual in ways that still unsettle mainstream cinema, its real subject is something far more vulnerable: the terror and necessity of letting people in. Made with unsimulated frankness (and real sex) and extraordinary tenderness, it remains the rare film that uses the body to talk about the soul.

With introduction by Associate Professor Denton Callander (The Kirby Institute, UNSW), sex research scientist and co-chief investigator on the latest Australian Study of Health and Relationships.

Directed by John Cameron Mitchell, US, 2006, 101 min, R 18+.
Starring: John Cameron Mitchell, Paul Dawson, Sook-Yin Lee, Raphael Barker, PJ DeBoy.
Image: courtesy of Oscilloscope.