13/11/2013 - Swedish director Wictor Ericsson’s 100-minute portrait of Joseph W Sarno – a pioneer in cinema sexploitation, named the Ingmar Bergman of 42nd Street – has been sold for American distribution

Swedish writer-director Wictor Ericsson’s 100-minute documentary The Sarnos – A Life in Dirty Movies (photo), portraying American director Joseph W Sarno and his wife and collaborator, Peggy, has been sold to New York’s renowned Film Movement for US distribution, Finnish-Swedish international sales agency The Yellow Affair has announced.

The Erik Magnusson and Ingunn Knudsen production for Sweden’s Anagram Produktion, which was screened at the recent BFI-London International Film Festival, will be launched at the DOCNYC International Documentary Film Festival in New York between November 14-21.

One of the few directors in sexploitation, softcore and hardcore to receive critical attention – with US colleagues Russ Meyer and Radley Metzer – Sarno was a pioneer of the genre, best known for such films as Sin in the Suburbs (1964), Moonlighting Wives (1966), The Bed and How to Make It! (1966) and Inga (1968).

Scripted by Ericsson, The Sarnos is an intimate portrayal of the writer-director during what should be the last year of his life (2010), as he and his wife are trying to get one last film project off the ground, a female centred soft-core film. “In general, I focus on the female orgasm as much as I can - women have much more imagination than men,” said Sarno, who is credited for 121 films between 1961-2004. He died in 2010; his wife, Peggy Steffans Sarno, appeared in several of them.

The Sarnos features archive footage of his films and interviews with filmmakers and critics, celebrating his influence and explaining why he was often called the Ingmar Bergman of 42nd street. “It’s equally touching and enlightening - a true love story between both a man and a woman, and a man and cinema,” said Film Movement’s Rebeca Cognet.