Paul Interlandi of Arrow Productions told XBiz that this is the first nonadult festival “Deep Throat” has ever been invited to participate in.
Both the original film and the documentary will be shown during the festival that runs Sept. 22-Oct. 4, “since many [attendees] did not have the opportunity to see it in theaters when it originally came out." Interlandi said.
Interlandi suspects that “Deep Throat” and the 17-minute documentary will be screened back to back.
The two films are currently in theaters all over the world, with an increasing presence in Europe, however, Interlandi said, to be invited to appear at a film festival is a validation of how important “Deep Throat” was as a culturally iconic film.
“When important films are asked to show, that itself is the award,” he said.
But the road to mainstream film festival acceptance has been a long one since the debut of “Deep Throat” in 1972, and keeping the original version in good condition has been a struggle, Interlandi said.
Currently, only one original print of “Deep Throat” exists after the federal government seized the negatives in numerous cross-country obscenity raids in the 1970s and after all these years, they never returned the evidence.
“The original negatives were lost and most of the prints that survived the prosecution were played continuously for 20 years, day and night, and are now all torn up and scratched,” Interlandi said.
Arrow Productions, the holder of “Deep Throat” film rights, recently did a restoration of the original film and came out with a DVD version and a version for release in theaters, along with the documentary, which features Eric Edwards, one of the last performers to have worked with Linda Lovelace.
The restored version includes missing scenes from the original 1972 original. Sales have so far topped nearly 20,000 copies in 12 months.
Over the last 30 years “Deep Throat” sold 3 million VHS copies and has grossed more than $600 million in the box office, Interlandi said, referring to the film as “porn’s first talkie” and the first feature adult film to receive theatrical play.
“It’s as important as ‘Birth of a Nation,’ ‘The Great Train Robbery’ or 'Citizen Cain,'” Interlandi said. “It ranks up there with the others because it was the first adult feature that started an entire industry.”
Arrow Productions is currently developing a high definition version of “Deep Throat.”
