Buon giorno, John Porno. Past the festival midpoint viewers tend to get a little tired of Hollywood hype as well as artistic or pseudo-artistic international art faire. What audiences crave then is “the highly publicized scandal film”. Every festival has one. Sometimes, though, the product does not live up to expectations. This was not the case with Rocco, the eagerly anticipated documentary on Rocco Siffredi, a name recognized by almost all of the world’s red-blooded males and some females. Rocco Siffredi is certainly Europe’s most famous pornstar. In Italy, calling him a superstar is not even an exaggeration. And so those getting into the first screening faced stiff competition. Once seated, some wondered how long into the doc it would take to see the man’s most infamous body part. We were not disappointed: the opening shot of the movie looked like a shower gel commercial crafted by an artist, framing Rocco from mid-torso to mid-thigh, with droplets of water dripping off him – all of him – in slow motion. The whole shot, starting with the lighting, may have been soft, yet impressive. Time for some stats: Rocco Siffredi, 52, whose real name is Rocco Tano – he took his stage name from Alain Delon’s character in Borsalino, made 1,300 hardcore films in his illustrious 30 year career, more than 300 of them as a director. His ominous 24 centimeters have spurned a variety of sex toys modeled from the cast of his penis.

The film is driven by his voice over, and he comes across as molto simpatico. Porn actresses have praised him for years: “He was always a gentleman, much more than the others and we would do things with him that we wouldn’t do with anyone else” said Bobbi Starr once. His big performances as well as the way he carries himself give credence to this in the doc which was made by the French duo Thierry Demaiziere and Alban Teurlai. Siffredi’s career in this industry is unique, for sure. He decided to take control early on, starting a production company with his director/cameraman Gabriele Galetta who is also his cousin and a bit of a putz. Their slightly co-dependent relationship and artistic fights over storylines makes for the humorous moments in the film. They banter, they argue, they scream at each other. But then again – how do you fire your cousin? And yes, there are the clichés: the poor background in a small village in central Italy, the typical Italian mother complex. Mamma found him masturbating at the tender age of nine, which caused quite some guilt, and after her funeral he had sex with a much older stranger, a woman he saw on a balcony, only to never talk to her again. He is a self-proclaimed sex-addict, but one for whom the woman’s pleasure is as important as his own. This pertains to his film partners as much as to his wife Rosa Caracciolo, born Rosza Tassi, a Hungarian model and former porn actress whom he met in 1993 in Cannes. They have two sons and live in Budapest where his company has been based for decades, a fact that is never fully explained in the doc but has to do with the much stricter porn laws in Italy.

There are plenty of sex scenes in the film, obviously, which were shot during the making of some of his famous pornos. But these scenes are filmed in a highly artistic way with close-ups only on a muscle, a thigh and most importantly facial expressions. It becomes clear that Siffredi is a complex man, torn between his work that sometimes is his passion, and a deep sadness, not to say depression. He gave up performing in 2009 because he could not reconcile his work with bringing up two sons who – as they got older – would understand exactly what their father was doing, but returned to it a few years later with the full support of his wife. A year ago he gave it up for good, and this leads to the most climactic scenes of the documentary. He really wants to go out with a big bang and hires big porn names Kelly Stafford and James Deen for a last onscreen hurrah in which he is chained to a cross. The double meaning of the burden of his cross to bear is clear here.

At the afterparty for his premiere, Rocco Siffredi proved that he had entered the mainstream. The reception was by far the most coveted ticket of the festival with journalists and fans clamoring to get in. On the dance floor Rocco, who had attended the festival every year for the past decade, showed off his moves to the delight of some giggling starlets.