Pornhub is expanding its content with its first-ever non-adult film.
The pornography website announced it will soon debut Leilah Weinraub's Shakedown—an hour-long documentary that explores Los Angeles' lesbian strip club scene during the early 2000s. The film will specifically focus on the lives of female performers known as the Shakedown Angels. According to Pornhub, Weinraub began filming the documentary in 2002 and went on to collect 15 years worth of footage, including interviews and backstage videos.
Per the Shakedown's 2010 Kickstarter page:
The films structure employs the cycle of money exchanged and passed through the world as a metaphor for energy; from costume maker to security guard to patrons to the dancer's children. SHAKEDOWN emphasizes the symbiotic nature of how things work in a system. The film is anchored in the stories of three women: Ronnie Ron, the creator and emcee of Shakedown, a large butch/stud lesbian and former Jehovah's Witness; Egypt, a single mother, beauty pageant fanatic, and dedicated self - (re)inventor; and Jazmyne, the complicated and sometimes conflicted "Queen" of Shakedown. We go through the process of their labor with them and record what they do, and how they feel about what they are doing.
Shakedown can be streamed on Pornhub beginning Wednesday and throughout the month of March. The film will then premiere on the Criterion Channel, and then hit the iTunes store sometime this summer.
"There’s a cool opportunity right now to present films in the art space, there’s more openness to diversity and content, and a different sort of storytelling," Weinraub told Variety.
According to IndieWire, the documentary has been shown a number of times over the last several years, being screened at the 2017 Whitney Biennial, the 68th Berlin International Film Festival, Tate Modern, and MoMA PS1. Check out its 2017 trailer below.
Weinraub previously collaborated with Pornhub in 2016, when she was working as a creative director for Hood By Air. That year, she helmed the presentation for HBA's fall collection, which included official Pornhub merch.
