• The Hollywood Reporter on LinkedIn
  • Follow THR on Pinterest

7sex7: Montreal Review

7sex7 - P 2012

The Bottom Line

Uneven but likeable series of vignettes flirts as much as it arouses


Montréal World Film Festival, Focus on World Cinema


Robert Kurbasa, Jelena Percin, Ivan Glowatzky, Frano Maskovic, Scilla Barath Bastaic, Marinko Les


Irena Škorić

Despite its themes, this eros-centric Croatian import isn't graphic enough to bother the MPAA.

MONTREAL — An erotic anthology with enough flirtatious humor to keep it out of the art-porn zone, Irena Škorić's 7sex7 doesn't succeed on all fronts but should have something to stir the interest of nearly any date-night arthouse patron.

Seven unrelated stories bump up against each other, with five heterosexual scenarios and one each involving gay men and a lesbian couple (the latter having recruited a "human vibrator" for a special occasion). Some stories begin in bed and go afield; some begin with sex looking highly improbable. None shows anything that could be called sexually explicit, and in one or two cases little attempt is made to make simulation look like more than just that.

The movie's softcore nature is acknowledged slyly in the first episode, where a frustrated woman tries to conquer her boyfriend's fixation on the Emmanuelle series. This tale sets the bar for humor here, which is low-key but almost always present, even in stories that, as a couple do, go south. (One turns obliquely violent, two involve betrayals of some sort.)

The stories range from juvenile fantasies (the record nerd who scores in his favorite music store -- though he'd have preferred a Czech girl to a Hungarian) to scammy set-ups that would make even a porn customer's eyes roll. But most of the tales manage a moment or more of heat, and a couple sustain it.

Darko Heric's often haphazard handheld photography lends a real-world sloppiness (as do the largely ordinary-looking cast members) but does little for the film's sensuality quotient. Škorić's choice to end with the film's most mean-spirited story is further proof she's not out to make a straightforward aphrodisiac for highbrow moviegoers.


Production Company: Artizana Film

Cast: Robert Kurbasa, Jelena Percin, Ivan Glowatzky, Frano Maskovic, Scilla Barath Bastaic, Marinko Les

Director-Screenwriter-Produce-Production designer-Costume designer: Irena Škorić

Director of photography: Darko Heric

Music: Berislav Sipus

Editor: Mislav Muretic

Sales: Irena Škorić

No rating, 81 minutes