Page 30 - AVN April 2018

WHO’S WHO
CONFESSIONS OF A MOVIE BUFF
Mile High’s Ricky Greenwood talks about sexploitation movies, porn as a genre,
and what lies ahead
INTERVIEW | By Tod Hunter
a splash with Confessions of a
Sinful Nun (Sweetheart/Mile
High) with the production
Director Ricky Greenwood made
earning seven AVN Award
nominations, including Best
Drama, Best Director – Feature,
Best Cinematography and Best
Art Direction.
We caught up with Greenwood after he had wrapped
principal photography on his follow-up feature,
Becoming Elsa, with Elsa Jean, India Summer, Charlotte
Stokely, Ana Foxxx, Jade Kush, Abella Danger and
Cherie DeVille. “It was a great shoot. The cast was
amazing and we had a great location. It wound up
better than I was expecting.”
Of Confessions of a Sinful Nun, Greenwood said, “I’ve
always been a fan of nun exploitation movies. I tried to
make one on the mainstream side, but they don’t have
that kind of movie any more. They don’t even make
sexploitation movies any more. I asked [Mile High
Media] if I could do a nun-spolitation movie and they
said yes. That’s the movie I wanted to make for many
years. The new one is a coming-of-age movie, another
genre that I really love. I had a chance to make that
also, and I’m pretty happy with that.”
When asked about the exploitation filmmakers who
influenced him, Greenwood said, “Obviously Russ
Meyer is one of them. Jess Franco is another one I
really like. All those guys from the ’70s who made the
movies like Caged Heat and the Ilsa movies. Stuff I grew
up watching.
“Meyer was great. He made movies at a time when
porn didn’t exist, or it wasn’t everywhere. He made
movies that people wanted to see. They were fun to
watch, they were well made. I like what he was doing.
I’ve watched many of his movies and I try to make a
modern version. Obviously Becoming Elsa isn’t that type
of film, but for Sinful Nun we tried to re-create that
look. Those movies, even if they were just exploitation
films, they still had something to say. That’s what we
tried to do with the nun movie. Not a huge moral, but
I tried to express my feeling that the church doesn’t
really allow gay people being together, for example.
30 | AVN.com | 4.18
Elsa Jean (left) plays a Southern girl who develops feelings for her landlady (India Summer, above right). Below, Ricky Greenwood with Jade Kush and Abella Danger.
We tried to put that in the movie. Obviously the
main point is the sex and the romance between the
characters, but we also tried to put in the subtext:
Sometimes you feel different, and it’s okay to feel
different and have different feelings.”
Greenwood was a director of sports features and
reality features for Canadian television before moving
into adult. “You follow them for three weeks, with
interviews and footage of what happened, and then
put it together in post. I did some live-cutting stuff
too, in the studio. I have done both, but I prefer to do
it in post, because you can fix your mistakes. When
you do it live, if you do a mistake, everyone sees it.
It’s another challenge.”
‘FOR ME, I DON’T
SEE A DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN
MAINSTREAM AND
PORN. FOR ME, PORN
IS ANOTHER GENRE
OF MAINSTREAM
STORIES.
always amazing. I’m discovering girls like Elsa Jean:
I knew she was a great performer, but as an actress
she’s great. India Summer was a revelation also.”
Becoming Elsa is planned for an April 18 release.
After exploring nunsploitation and coming-of-age,
Greenwood has another exploitation homage planned,
but he’s not giving details. “It’s an ambitious movie,
but I don’t want to talk about it. I had this crazy idea
of a place I wanted to go, and I said I wanted to go
there, and they said ‘Why not?’ so I’m going there. I
think it will be a complete surprise when I announce
it. People will be very happy with it. It’s a nice story.
It will be different. I can say it will be another girl/girl
movie.”
Greenwood plans to start making b/g movies in
2018. “The stories I have wanted to tell were girl/girl.
When I have a story to tell, no matter the genre, I’m
going to go for it. My first three stories were girl/girl,
but the next one will be boy/girl. I have no problem
telling a story, be it with a transsexual or anybody
else. I just want to make good movies. For me, I don’t
see a difference between mainstream and porn. For
me, porn is another genre of mainstream stories.
Action films is something, drama is something,
comedy is something and porn is something. Just
another genre of movies. It’s nothing different. Just
telling a story. It goes where it goes.”
Greenwood’s new feature Becoming Elsa is about
a young girl from a Southern town who “puts all
her energy into studying, but she develops a feeling
for India Summer, who rents rooms in her house
for university students. She falls in love with India
Summer but she doesn’t know how to express her
feelings. She becomes friends with Charlotte Stokely,
a complete opposite of who she is, and Charlotte is
the person Elsa wants to be. I don’t want to go too
far, it’s got a nice twist to it. I think people will be
happy to discover it. The cast is amazing. If I could
have Charlotte Stokely in every movie I would. She’s