Whore Next Door, Siouxsie Q, Shine Louise Houston, Snapshot

By Siouxsie Q Wednesday, Jun 24, 2015

The way the fog creeps over the Golden Gate and spills into North Beach, the bizarre ruins of Adolph Sutro’s mansion looming over the ghostly Cliff House — even in summertime, San Francisco is an ideal backdrop for mystery and intrigue. Alfred Hitchcock fell in love with our city in the late 1930s and went on to film at many San Francisco landmarks, like Mission Dolores and the Legion of Honor.

This summer, veteran Bay Area filmmaker Shine Louise Houston, of The Crash Pad Series and Pink and White Productions, is hoping to capture a taste of Hitchcock’s San Francisco. Snapshot, her fifth feature film, is an erotic thriller, but this iteration of San Fran suspense features radical queer sex as well as a coming-out story.

Photographer Charlie, played by BDSM porn starlet Beretta James, falls for Danny, an older butch played by former Lusty Lady dancer and queer porn-favorite Chocolate Chip. But when Charlie accidentally snaps a photo of a murderer and becomes his next target, things get complicated. Film buffs would call it a MacGuffin; I call it a murderous meet-cute.

Houston has garnered critical acclaim for her sex-positive films that showcase the complexities of queer desire. Champion: Love Hurts, was named movie of the year at the 2009 Feminist Porn Awards, and even received a nod from the mainstream porn industry with a 2010 AVN nomination for the best video feature.

Houston hopes to make an even bigger splash with Snapshot, and while Pink and White Productions has some seed money, it’s not quite enough to finish the film. While other queer and independent artists can seek grant or government funding, artists who showcase explicit sexuality often don’t have the same opportunities.

To get Snapshot made, Houston and the Pink and White team turned to crowdfund, despite the contentious relationship folks in the sex industry have often had with these platforms.

“I was apprehensive about using a crowdfunding platform,” Houston said, and with good reason. Recently, a sex worker from Houston who goes by the name Kamylla said the short-lived A&E show 8 Minutes had promised her resources that would help her exit the sex industry, but those resources never came. Kamylla, along with sex worker activists, started a crowdfunding campaign to help pay her family’s rent and bills while she transitioned out of the…