feature story by Nash Elder

[ newsletter 002 - may 9, 2025 ]

An orange haze hung over the sky while hazmat suited lifeless characters swept the streets and mopped the light poles outside the Alamo Theater in Austin, Texas. The cleaners, as they are called in the film, brought their sisyphean tasks to life—immersing movie-goers in “Trashtown” as they stood in a line wrapping around the building to see Fucktoys (written, directed, and starred by Annapurna Sriram). 

The immersive theater element prior to the last screening was just one of many employed by the Fucktoys cast and crew throughout its premiere week at SXSW. First, a psychic approached festival goers to read their tarot, only to find out that the card they kept for the future was a replica from the film. Next, a raunchy kissing and spanking booth was set up outside an upscale social bar where passersby could be disciplined and get a postcard for the film.

“I think that cinema should be fun and inclusive, and by creative immersive theater performances, it hopefully makes the audience feel like they are already in the world and in the film,” Sriram said. “My hope is that audiences will make dressing up and being a part of the world their own tradition with the film, and show up dressed to the nines in Trashtown fits.”

The film gave everything a cult classic should—striking cinematography, campy writing and styling, all shot on 16 mm film. This purposefully unrealistic and exaggerated stylization is balanced by story.

Sriram refers to it as Neo-Camp, “which I take to mean drawing upon heightened and exaggerated aesthetics, while maintaining a grounded and heartfelt narrative. I think with cinema it's fun to explore the full expanse of imagination. With a movie you can make anything happen, so why not stretch the bounds of storytelling.

The narrative of my movie is grounded in my real life relationships, situations, and experiences, so my hope is that the emotional through line keeps the audiences engaged even if the scenes take place in an imagined and theatrical universe.”

The film follows AP through a fool’s journey to eradicate a curse that ails her. Jumping psychic to psychic and funded by sex work, the protagonist works toward her goal of sacrificing a lamb—the prophesied act proclaimed by the first psychic to rid her of the curse once and for all. 

Sriram focused on representation for her character as well as drew inspiration from the sex worker in the film Nights of Cabiria—creating a nontraditional, funny, expressive sex icon.

“My whole life I’ve only ever seen a majority of blonde women as sex icons and I think this can be damaging for women who are not white, like myself,” Sriram said. “I wanted there to be a film where someone who was not typical, Eurocentric in looks could be the lead and also be a sex-pot. I wanted the character to be casual and comfortable with herself and her body, and not be phased by sexuality or fetish. My point was to let her be the lead of her own story—to be playful and fun—and that is her main mode of experiencing and exploring her sexuality.”

This film is on the run in 2025. Catch Fucktoys at the Roxie in San Francisco as part of the Center for Asian American Media, on May 10; then at Seattle International Film Festival May 16 and 17.