Doc on Performer Morgana Muses Sets North American Premiere

CHATSWORTH, Calif.—At age 47, Morgana Muses was a divorced, ex-housewife in Australia coming out of a cold and sexless marriage, battling depression and contemplating suicide. As one, final fling she booked herself a night in a hotel with an escort to keep her company. But that evening not only saved her life, it sent her life in an entirely new direction—into the world of adult moviemaking and performing. Her first effort, in 2012, was inspired by her evening in that hotel room. But she has since become a prolific porn auteur. Now, at age 55, she is the subject of an already-award-winning documentary, appropriately titled Morgana, that will see its North American—though not United States—premiere later this month.  The film played last year at several film festivals in Australia, winning the “Best Australian Independent Film” award at the Gold Coast festival in April, which held its screenings online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Muses calls the film a “three-way collaboration” between herself and the co-directors, Josie Hess and Isabel Peppard. Peppard is a stop-motion animator whose elaborate miniatures provide a backdrop for dramatizations of some of the key moments in the subject’s story. Hess is a porn-industry cinematographer who has collaborated with Muses on a number of earlier projects. Just 29, Hess met Muses as a film student, when one of her lecturers at Melbourne’s Swinburne University became the director of Muses' third production, and hired Hess to work on the crew. "There was something that just clicked," Hess told the Australian newspaper The Age. “We were friends immediately, despite the 25-year age gap." Watch a newly released trailer for the documentary, below. The Age described the documentary as “primarily a portrait of Morgana's journey from powerless despair to body-positive agency.” But the paper added that the doc also explores “the little-known world of pornographic filmmaking in Australia.” "I think porn is like any industry—it's got its ethical producers and its unethical," Hess told The Age. "There's no monolith porn industry in Australia, just a bunch of independent creators. People like to think of it as this evil, dark world but the truth is the productions are for the most part safe, clean, and wanting to do right by your performers." The film took five years to make, Hess and Peppard told IndieWire, taking them “from rural Australia to the BDSM clubs of Berlin, to best tell Morgana’s story.” The film finally leaves Australia to play at the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from August 20 to September 20. Based in Montreal, the respected, genre-film fest will go all-online this year, but with limited ticket sales and fixed screening times, as part of the effort to best simulate the in-person festival-going experience.   Check the Fantasia Festival website for more information about screening times and prices.  Photo By Morgana Documentary website