RKS 2025 Film: “Diva Futura”: Artistic Pornography with Morals?

Riccardo Schicchi and Ilona “Cicciolina” Staller formed Italy’s first porno studio and talent agency Diva Futura in 1980’s Rome with a goal of changing Italy’s conservative sexual morality. Schicchi’s Girl Friday, Debora Attanasio office manager and publicist, wrote about Diva Futura, her book, the foundation for this Italian film.

A fascinating recounting of Diva Futura in conservative Rome of the 1980’s and 90’s interlaced with questions of morality and artistic freedom. Schicchi (Pietro Castellitto) muses early in the film that his ideas were scandalous and immoral, but it put the agency on the front pages of Rome’s newspapers. Society condemns Diva Futura yet it is drawn to it.

The stories of Schicchi, Attanasio (Barbara Ronchi) and porn starlets Cicciolina (Lidija Kordic), Eva (Tesa Litvan) and Moana Pozzi (Denise Capezza) are an integral part of Diva Futura’s history.

The film pits morality and artistic freedom faced by Diva Futura and its starlets. Some of its unabashed challenges to Italian sexual mores could have been founded in the bullying of Schicchi in elementary school causing him to reject the attitudes of male virility and machoism and praise the attributes of womanly beauty.

Actressses wished to work for Schicchi for his artistic and erotic bent a far cry from the Hungarian porno factory (was it a former slaughterhouse?) portrayed near the film’s conclusion. Schicchi repeatedly morns the degradation of pornography as driven by internet amateurs making films with no vision, no art and controlling the masses without poetry. Porn has been degraded to the extent it gives life to the mental disorders of the worst male.” Was Schicchi’s pornography artistic with a modicum of morality?

Italian authorities target Schicchi’s operations with arrests, confiscation and prison sentences despite some Catholic priests being the best customers in his clubs hence made increasingly hypocritical by the Catholic church failing to conduct his funeral services.

Debora remarks Schicchi’s big mistake was to openly attempt to change Italy’s sexual morality instead of covertly.

Despite the efforts of Schicchi, his wife, Eva, notes she made the biggest mistake of her life becoming a porn actress. Food for thought. Even “artistic and poetic” pornography claims its victims.

Directed by Giulia Louise Steiger.

Digital North American release 11 November2025.

RKS 2025 Film Rating 88/100.

RKS Literature: Australian Blackbirder Slavers (Pat Barker)

“He’d started as a “blackbirder” as so many of the older traders had, kidnapping natives to work on the Queensland plantations, and he was frank about his methods too. Make friends with them, invite them on board ship, get them drunk and Bob’s your uncle, By the time they come around they’re out at sea and there’s bugger all they can do about it.”

Pat Barker, “The Ghost Road”, 1995.

RKS 2025 Travel: Destination Southeast Asia (Short Attention Span Version)

GETTING THERE

Not brimming with excitement facing a 15 ½ hour flight from Toronto to Hong Kong with a two-hour layover waiting for a 3 ½ hour flight to Singapore.

The outboard flight and connecting flights to Singapore on Cathay Pacific one of the three best airlines in world as awarded in by Skytrax in 2025.

Dingy Airbus 350 plane with lavatories from prehistoric era and a less than cheerful cabin colour.

Have bulkhead seats in Economy with adequate but not overly generous legroom. Warning though to our left a baby change station in the family seats. Hoping the screeching baby and poop smells are at a minimum.

As the flight departs at noon a good part of the trip will be in daylight but oh no after lunch the cabin is dimmed to the pitch-black status illuminated by entertainment screens. Trapped in darkness like in a Joseph Conrad novel “Darkness at Noon”.

Holy Moses low life economy class passengers receive a menu with a choice and unlike my Air Canada Euro flights from Toronto the menu is far more interesting than Air Canada’s chicken and pasta and unlike Air Canada they do not run out of that cheap and cheerful chicken as it is not on the menu.

I choose a “Crispy Fish with Sweet and Sour Sauce” as a main but replace “crispy” with “soggy”. Started with “Turkey and a Seven Grains Salad”. The turkey is sliced processed sandwich meat. My God. Would they endure sandwich meat in Business Class! Wine, Rolf Binder Shiraz, in a paper cup. Delicious “Betsy” lager brewed exclusively for Cathay Pacific.

The dinner dish is shrimp in rice, actually there are even visible shrimp! Tasty.

Movie selection has a slight Chinese and Korean element to it. Watched “Trapped” a quasi-Chinese Mad Max film and a Hong Kong caper film “Smashing Frank” then an Italian film “Napoli New York”. Three movies watched and six hours remaining. I can’t read in the oppressive pitch-black flying prison I am in. Poor audio selection.

Arrive at Hong Kong’s massive airport and then off to Singapore. Dinner is chicken and rice in gravy. My stomach turns. The fruit salad is long past its prime and the miniscule wisp of lettuce has turned brown.

Take a prearranged car at Singapore airport to Shangri-La Hotel and collapse.

Made it but what shape am I in?

RKS 2025 CANADIAN Film: “Dream Eater”: Bereft of Terror

Poor Alex (Alex Lee Williams) is suffering from parasomnia clear at the beginning of the film he is a danger to himself and as the movie progresses a danger to his sweetheart, unsuccessful documentary filmmaker Mallory (Mallory Drumm). As appropriate, given his self destructive bent he is receiving medical care.

Off Mallory and Alex travel to a cottage in a deserted rural area to celebrate Alex’s thirtieth birthday a significant age for the “terror” to come. Yes, yet another deserted locale and found footage horror film. A pattern of predictability is setting in. The winter wonderland escapade, upon medical advice, is to be filmed in its entirety to enable a therapeutic diagnosis which given Alex’s behaviour is dangerously tardy. His doctor has warned parasomniacs have killed their bed partners. What horror watching Mallory act like a lamb going to the slaughter. Alex should be committed to institutional care under mental health legislation as a danger to himself and others. Interesting what love can do to impair rational judgement. Could that be a main point in this film?

A fuddly duddy Dr. Armitage author of a particular demonic possession book flits onto the scene like Dr. Everett Scott in “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and viewers understand the beast Alex is and is becoming of course spiced up by his mass killer cultist mother.

Alex repetitively spooks Mallory frightening the poor dear. Run Mallory, run but in a thespian sense her fright is a bit “stiff”. Theoretically the terror should start cascading about the screen but it is so predictable and formalistic saved by occasional bizarre whistling (not emphysema) and whirling camera work which due to its frequency may make the viewer dizzy.

A bit of a spicy conclusion. Who thought pregnancy test results could be so ominous. I’M BACK!

On an optimistic note could it be Mallory’s chance to Hot Doc fame? How much can filmmakers parlay their misery into a work of art?

Canadian theatrical release began 24October2025.

Directors are Jay Darkulic, Mallory Drumm and Alex Lee Williams.

RKS 2025 Canadian Film Rating 64/100.

RKS Literature: Murderous Missionary Ships (Pat Barker)

“Rivers was used to missionary islands where canoes paddled out to meet the oncoming steamer, brown faces, white eyes, flashing smiles, while others gathered at the landing stage, ready to carry bags up to the mission station for a few sticks of tobacco or even sheer Christian goodwill. A cheerful picture, as long as you didn’t notice the rows and rows of crosses in the mission graveyard, men and women in the prime of life dead of the diseases of the English nursery: whooping cough, measles, diphtheria, chicken pox, scarlet fever-all were fatal here. And the mission boat carried them from island to island, station to station remorselessly, year after year.”

Pat Barker, “The Ghost Road”, 1995.

RKS Literature:  Supressed Memory and a Smack on the Leg (Pat Barker)

“Was this the supressed memory? He didn’t know. Was it trivial? Well, yes, in a way, compared with Prior’s lurid imaginings. A smack on the leg, a lesson in manliness from an over conscientious but loving father. It’s a long way from sadistic beatings, And yet it wasn’t as trivial as it seemed at first.”

“The Ghost Road”, Pat Barker, 1995.

RKS 2025 Wine: Montes Alpha 2021 Special Cuvée Cabernet Sauvignon

Chile has a leg up when the subject is quality and affordable wine many of which are under $20 CDN.

A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Carmenére. It has rested 16 months in French oak.

Montes Alpha 2021 Special Cuvée Cabernet Sauvignon is running in the quality pack!

Aroma: Richer than Jeff Bezos. Massive blackberry attack leads the charge supported by a blueberry and dark chocolate platoon. Absolutely decadent but not in an Augusto Pinochet type of way!

Palate: About as huge as the presence of the CIA in the downfall of Salvador Allende. Precise acidity prevents jamminess. In addition to the blackberry and blueberry some spiciness all giving the wine a complex and long finish with some burn not surprising considering the 14.5% alcohol.

Personality: Proudly Chilean strutting incredible quality for a song.

Cellarbility:  Enjoy now with its assertive nature. It may mellow out through to 2027.

Food Match: Think all manner of beef and why not with a prime rib on a cold winter day in Canada. Throw in some Yorkshire pudding why don’t you?

Price: $24.95 CDN.

RKS 2025 Wine Rating: 92/100. 94 Jamessuckling.com.

(Montes Alpha 2021 Special Cuvée Cabernet Sauvignon, D.O. Valle de Colchagua, Montes, Chile, 14.5%, 750 mL.).

RKS Literature: Death and Cartography (Michael Ondaatje)

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden as if in caves. I wish for all of this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography-to be marked in nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such earth that had no maps.”

Michael Ondaatje, “The English Patient”: 1992.

RKS Literature: The Human Element and Burglary (Michael Ondaatje)

“Caravaggio was constantly diverted by the human element during burglaries. Breaking into a house during Christmas, he would become annoyed if he noted the Advent calendar had not been opened up to the date to which it should have been. He often had conversations with the various pets left alone in houses, rhetorically discussing meals with them, feeding them large helpings, and was often greeted by them with considerable pleasure if he returned to the scene of the crime.”

Michael Ondaatje, “The English Patient” 1992.