‘Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life’ Creates Intimate Portrait Of Gay Israeli Porn Star: “It’s The Back Stage Of The Sex Industry”
deadline.comAward-winning Israeli director Tomer Heymann is touring the United States in support of his latest documentary, Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life, a film that has earned praise in newspapers as geographically disparate as The New York Times and Israel’s Haaretz.There was talk of Agassi, the subject of the film, joining Heymann for the U.S.
theatrical opening. But work obligations have kept him for the time being in Tel Aviv, where he currently makes a living in a rather more mundane field that what formerly brought him notoriety—gay porn.The film doesn’t manifest a prurient interest in Agassi’s career in adult entertainment, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t explicit.
Within roughly the first two minutes of the documentary, Agassi has pulled out his, uh, equipment, matter-of-factly preparing for a live sex show.
Heymann tells Deadline an uncensored depiction of Agassi’s work was essential to his filmmaking approach.“My origin point was that there was just something so powerful about Jonathan, which I wanted to find out about.
