In the spring of 2004, 21-year old Lara Roxx left her hometown of Montreal and headed to L.A to try to make tons of cash in the adult entertainment industry. Within two months of working in this industry she contracted the most virulent form of HIV while performing sex in front of the camera. Inside Lara Roxx is a feature-length-documentary about the events leading up to that scene and the years after it- it is about the adult movie industry and its impact on a young life. Lara Roxx, as she will come to be known in the sex industry, has been irrevocably changed by her work in porn. Miss Roxx’s story created a media sensation, but it’s when the media hype dies that Inside Lara Roxx begins – in a psychiatric ward in Montreal. The porn industry, a powerful industry with billions of dollars in profits worldwide has failed Lara. Out of the hundreds of thousands of sex scenes that have been recorded on film over the last few decades, there have only been 19-recorded incidents of HIV in the heterosexual porn industry. Lara Roxx is one of them. As mainstream audiences are beginning to embrace pornography – increasingly people are beginning to perceive the porn-industry as a facet of Hollywood. Inside Lara Roxx gives us a glimpse into the transient world of adult entertainment and how it still differs greatly from the mainstream film industry in terms of the presence of unions, guilds and industry-wide rules and regulations that have been put in place to ensure the safety and security of its workers.

Inside Lara Roxx follows Miss Roxx’s journey, from when we first meet her at a psychiatric hospital in 2005, where she was being treated for mental distress; on a trip to L.A’s porn industry in 2007 in order to retrace the footsteps she took three years earlier; and later on, in 2008, on a trip to the AVN Expo in Las Vegas, the largest annual porn convention in the world, where Lara Roxx was able to reach out to young porn stars and media as well, in order to spread awareness about the risks involved in shooting unprotected sex. After the success of both Los Angeles and Las Vegas trips, it feels that Lara Roxx’s story had reached a positive high and that from there, Lara would continue to reach out and grow as a person. However, within several months of our return from Las Vegas Lara’s life took another unexpected turn that ultimately led her to confront her biggest obstacle yet.

All of our documentaries are in English or include English subtitles. Our screenings are free and open to all (no registration required). After each film, we host a lively discussion with experts from the Faculty of Arts and outside, followed by Q&A for audience questions.

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