Lukas Zpira

A journalist discovers the underworld of the clans of Vampyres in New York City. He spends two years with the real vampyres like an anthropologist and brings back unique evidence on film.

A documentary exploring the multiple facets of sexuality, the film took over five years of preparation and two years' filming. From the United States to Japan, via Brazil, Raphaël Sibilla delves into the world of the staging and fulfilment of fantasies, from the most straightforward – swinging soirées and SM bars – to the most extreme, fetishism and scarification. Although the notion of sexual pleasure is always present, the filmmaker gradually enlarges upon his subject and moves away from the simple, raw representation of sexual practices. He raises more general issues, without ever being judgemental, about his interviewees’ relationship to their bodies, seeking to understand the secret motivations and aspirations of men and women who are sometimes ready to go as far as mutilation to experience more intense pleasure.