Dan Savage, known for his internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column, Savage Love, and as the co-creator of the It Gets Better Project, decided in 2005 to challenge his Pacific NW readers to “get their hands dirty” and create good, old-fashion homemade porn. With no limits or stipulations the winning film shorts represented the full spectrum of titillation and fetishes. Straight, gay, transgendered, and more (!) all share the screen to sold out audiences who couldn’t get enough of seeing their friends, colleagues, and fellow Portland and Seattleites reveal what they think is the ultimate turn on!
As such, the HUMP! Festival was born. Every year attendance has boomed, encore shows are added, and the entries have escalated in volume and quality. Now, almost a decade later, Savage has curated and created the HUMP! Tour. The 20 shorts consist of Dan’s personal favorites, mixed with some of the most popular audience picks throughout the years. The films are hilarious, thought-provoking, artistic, sometimes sad, and often outrageous. Best of all, they are viewed together, in an audience — a strange and wonderful experience, to say the least!
From Dan Savage: “We bill HUMP! as an amateur porn festival. But it’s more than that. It’s rare for people to watch porn that takes them outside their comfort zones—it’s rare for people to watch porn that, if they were home alone in front of the computer, they wouldn’t choose to click on and watch. At HUMP! straight people watch gay porn, vanilla people watch kinky porn, gay people watch lesbian porn. And people laugh, they gasp, sometimes they cover their eyes. But at the end of every film people clap and cheer. It’s moving and wonderful and newcomers don’t expect it. The whole festival is a celebration of sexual diversity.”
The HUMP! Tour comes to the Village East Cinema in NYC on April 25th-27th. Tickets are $25. Advance screeners of the program will be available on a limited basis; for an overview of each film and the full list of tour dates check out www.humptour.com.
