Porn has undergone a lot of changes in the face of the internet. Porn movies with plots (or at least attempts at plots) have become less common, replaced by sites offering lots of individual sex scenes or artificially joining several of those together and calling it a movie.

However gay porn studio CockyBoys has been fighting back against that, and has been trying to see if in the crowded world of porn, there’s room for filmmaking that tries something a little different.

As well as releasing quite a lot of interestingly filmed sex scenes, the site has produced feature length projects such as Project Go-Go Boy, The Haunting and, most recently, Roadstrip, which received rave reviews on its release. Indeed the film’s director (and CockyBoys co-owner), Jake Jaxson, believes the movie is good enough in its own right that he’s stripping out most of the hardcore and cutting a special 82-minute version to show at this year’s Qfest gay film festival in Philadelphia. It’ll screen on July 20th at 9:30pm at Ritz East Theater 2.

Whether the movie is a worthwhile piece of queer filmmaking and not just ‘porn’ is yet to be seen, and the screening certainly has a whiff of promoting CockyBoys’ ideas about offering a slightly different kind of porn. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if many of the people going to the screening are going to be as interested in meeting some of the real CockyBoys as they are in the film.

Jaxson will be at the premiere event alongside models/actors Max Ryder, Jake Bass, Levi Karter and Ricky Roman, who will participate in a panel moderated by Paper Magazine‘s Mickey Boardman. There’ll also be a special CockyBoys event at the Voyeur Nightclub after the screening.

Qfest certainly seems to think it’s a film worth screening at a proper gay film festival, as the official description says that it ‘creatively fuses gay pornography along with experimental art, cinema verite and raunchy reality, and ha[s] fashioned one of the season’s most visually arresting and exciting (s)experiences’.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘RoadStrip follows CockyBoys models Max Ryder and Jake Bass as they travel across this great land of ours from New York to Palm Springs in a rented RV. We soon see what happens when cameras are on them 24/7 and the line between reality and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred. It also heralds an entirely new genre in gay filmmaking. Having just launched their careers, the two adorable young ‘uns had barely shaken the eggshells from their tender shoulders when their prior film Project Gogo Boy took the gay adult world by storm, racking up a mountain of awards and instantly catapulting both models and studio to the forefront of the industry.’

Find out more over on the Qfest site.

The Beijing Queer Film Festival has had a troubled history, but the sixth festival has reportedly gone off smoothly for the first time in its history, with 28 films from five countries shown.

As reported by Gay Star News, the ‘first festival in 2001 was shut down by government officials, the second edition was forced to move from Peking University to the 798 art district and the authorities forced organizers to cancel the fifth festival in 2011.’

However this time they put in place ways to prevent government intervention, such as only announcing venues at the last minute, as well as using places such as the French and Dutch Embassies and the American Center, which the Chinese authorities have less control over. There was also little publicity, with events billed as separate film screenings rather than a festival.

Indeed, it wasn’t until after the festival had ended that it was officially revealed that there had been a festival at all! It ran from June 19th to 23rd.

‘Through word-of-mouth, the festival gathered a full house at nearly all of its screenings, and only the occasional attendee was surprised to notice that the Beijing Queer Film Festival was behind the different queer film activities,’ said a statement from the festival organisers.

As well as the screenings, a scholarship program, started in 2011, awarded funding for 25 people from less-developed parts of China to attend. ‘They gladly embraced the opportunity to watch and discuss queer-themed films, an unknown luxury in their respective hometowns,’ said the organisers.

At the end of the event, the chairs for the next Festival in 2015 were announced as Queer Comrades Wei Xiaogang and Stijn Deklerck.

‘A lot can change within two years,’ said Wei. ‘The only thing that’s certain is that we need to continue to fight to obtain greater freedom of expression.’

While homosexuality is becoming more accepted in China, it still faces a lot of challenges and oppression. While gay conduct isn’t illegal in the country, the authorities still view it as suspicion, especially when gay people want to gather, as they fear it could lead to organised dissent.