Comedy drama BAD LUCK BANGING or LOONY PORN gets UK cinema release

Following its screening at the 65th BFI London Film Festival, Sovereign Film Distribution is proud to announce the release of the unique and brilliantly provocative comedy drama BAD LUCK BANGING or LOONY PORN on 26 November, in UK cinemas.

Winner of the prestigious Golden Bear at this year’s 71st Berlin International Film Festival, the latest film from Romanian writer/director Radu Jude (The Happiest Girl in the World) is wildly funny, alarmingly explicit, and extremely timely. It stars Katia Pascariu, in an astounding debut feature film performance, as a teacher who finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal, and very explicit, sex tape is leaked onto the Internet.

Shot in Romania in 2020, it incorporates the ongoing pandemic into the storyline, with the cast wearing masks on screen throughout. Featuring an explicit opening sequence that clearly sets out the film’s themes from the start, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is a fearless and sometimes outrageous film that is bound to cause a stir.

The film, that also screened at this year’s Transilvania International Film Festival amongst several others, takes brutally effective potshots at ‘the way we live now’, recalling the experimental brilliance of the notorious 1967 cause celebre I Am Curious Yellow and Alan Arkin’s sublimely dark tale of urban angst Little Murders, as well as the freewheeling irreverence of the French New Wave. It is, as Indiewire tantalisingly suggests, “a John Waters-like eruption of grotesque rage and outré wish-fulfillment”, that ScreenAnarchy calls “ingenious”.

A word of warning: some viewers might want to keep a mask handy while viewing – to cover your eyes for the opening three minutes.

Synopsis: A video goes viral. It shows a man and a woman having sex while wearing masks. The woman is, nevertheless, identified. Too bad she is a teacher and supposed to be a role model. And this, moreover, in a (post-socialist but ultimately any) society that is about to get lost in a social network discourse of would-be healing squeaky-clean attitudes, pseudo-political knowing-it-all, sanctimonious chauvinism and grotesque conspiracy theories. Everyone has an opinion. The debate turns into a tribunal – about consensual sex, pornography and more.