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I Am a Sex Addict

Just might be the truest film about addiction

I Am a Sex Addict
There's no other film like it. It's embarrassingly frank and self-revealing, sometimes funny, sometimes creepy, sometimes both. It makes sex addiction look almost fun, at first, then ugly and dispiriting. And it just might be the truest film about addiction, of any kind, that has ever been made.

Written and directed by Caveh Zahedi, it stars Zahedi in the autobiographical story of his own sex addiction. A narrative film, it employs a number of documentary techniques, including Zahedi's running narration, on camera and in voice-over. At times, he interrupts a scene to address the audience directly, sometimes even to discuss production difficulties, and at select moments, he shows home movie footage of the real people who inspired the various characters.

Yet the distinct virtues of "I Am a Sex Addict" go beyond its honesty or novelty. With penetrating accuracy, the film captures the patterns of an addict's life, the rationalizations, resolutions and recidivism. Clearly, the challenge for Zahedi was to stay true to the reality of that life -- the endless spirals of repetitive activity -- while making the story of a revolving-door existence dramatically effective. He succeeds by concentrating as much on the women in his life as on his own story. "I Am a Sex Addict" is about how a man's peculiar addiction -- an obsession with having sex with prostitutes -- poisons his relationships with a series of worthy and intelligent women.

"I Am a Sex Addict" is a comedy about something that isn't really all that funny, and Zahedi knows it. It's a sad story, a weird story and, in some ways, an unresolved story. From where did his obsession come? He has no pat answer, nor does he make his story conform to the conventional pattern of hitting bottom followed by redemption. The film stays medium cool, true and human. "I Am a Sex Addict" is a different kind of film, part memoir, part diary, part rant, held together by a curious singularity of vision. (M. LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle)

I Am a Sex Addict

Free show!

Sponsored by The Colorado Daily

Wed September 13, 2006, 7:00 & 9:00, Muenzinger Auditorium

USA, 2005, in English, Color, 98 min, Not Rated

recommend

Tickets

10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission. $7 w/UCB student ID, $7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.

Parking

Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.

RTD Bus

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(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.

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Thank you, sponsors!
Boulder International Film Festival
Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

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