ATLANTA — An award-winning documentary about famed gay adult film star Jonathan Agassi will make its North American debut Thursday at the Atlanta Film Festival.
“Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life,” from director-screenwriter Tomer Heymann, will screen at 7 p.m. local time. Heymann will attend the screening.
“Diving into [Agassi’s] fantastical life, this intimate documentary explores the highest highs and lowest lows of one of the world's most famous adult entertainers,” reads the festival’s promotional synopsis. “Behind the veil of fame, Agassi shares a loving yet complicated bond with his mother and an estrangement from his father that boils beneath the surface. The freedom of sex, the allure of drugs, and the confines of family ultimately force Jonathan to confront the harsh realities of his extreme lifestyle.”
The acclaimed documentary has recently played festivals in Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Lithuania, Switzerland and the U.K., where it recently received the Centerpiece Screening slot of the BFI Flare London LGBTQ Film Festival.
"This was the most hardcore film I have ever made,” Heymann told the London audience. “Not because of the sex and drugs… Because it is about parents and choices."
TheGayUK.com described the film as “both erotic and yet car crash cinema… We are taken on a ride and [what] a ride it is.”
Click here for details about the Atlanta Film Festival screening and follow the event on Twitter.
Last summer, "Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life” was awarded the Best Israeli Documentary Film prize from the Jerusalem Film Festival (click here for details) and Agassi was subsequently profiled by venerable Israeli newspaper Haaretz (click here).