HUMP! is an annual film festival founded by

Dan Savage Daniel Keenan Savage (born October 7, 1964) is an American author, media pundit, journalist, and LGBTQ community activist. He writes Savage Love, an internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column. In 2010, Savage and his husband, ...

in 2005. HUMP! describes itself as "the world's best amateur porn film festival." The festival—which premiered in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

, and

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

—showcases home-movie

erotica Erotica is art, literature or photography that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erot ...

, amateur sex cinema, and locally produced

pornography Pornography (colloquially called porn or porno) is Sexual suggestiveness, sexually suggestive material, such as a picture, video, text, or audio, intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornographic depictions have evolv ...

, all of which must be five minutes or less. Films are rated by the audience, and awards are given. HUMP! expanded to 14 additional cities in 2014, starting with sold-out shows at the Music Box Theater in Chicago. As of 2023, HUMP!'s annual tour includes more than fifty cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Each year the festival kicks off in Seattle and Portland before beginning its global tour. In its early years, Dan Savage would destroy the single

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

containing the films, ensuring performers' privacy was preserved forever. In 2023, however, HUMP! launched a

streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

library of past entries to allow for "timeless appreciation of hefestival's creative brilliance." HUMP! encourages filmmakers to produce entries specifically for HUMP! itself, however, the recognition has become so significant that several films which had premiered at HUMP! have been re-released and achieved significant commercial success, most notably among them the gay feature "Lawnboy" and Gloria Brame's short

mockumentary A mockumentary (a portmanteau of ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a Documentary film, documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyze or comment on current event ...

, "How To Get A Leg Up In Porn."

In popular culture

At the 25th Sundance Film Festival, the independent film '' Humpday'' featured characters creating a submission for the HUMP! film festival. The story of two straight men making a gay erotic film for the HUMP! opened to strongly positive reviews. In 2012,

Yvan Attal Yvan Attal (; ; born ) is a French actor, scriptwriter and film director. Life and career Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to History of the Jews in Algeria, Algerian-Jewish parents, he grew up in the outskirts of Paris. His acting debut was in Éri ...

made a remake of ''Humpday'' under the title '' Do Not Disturb''.

References

External links

*
HUMP!
The Stranger's annual film festival Festivals in Seattle Film festivals in Oregon Annual events in Portland, Oregon The Stranger (newspaper) Film festivals in Washington (state) Pornography in Oregon Sexuality in Washington (state) Dan Savage {{US-film-festival-stub