Coming to, or in, a theater near you in 2008 is the sensational new comedy that any fan of indie film doesn't dare miss - The Auteur.

First made as a short in 2002, The Auteur was conceived by writer/director James Westby as a comedy about a pornographer who took himself seriously as an artist. Actor Melik Malkasian played "Italian" porno director Arturo Domingo in that short. The creative chemistry was just right and the guys knew they were onto something, so they decided to go back for seconds, though not of the sloppy sort.

The feature-length version of The Auteur is a brillant movie and part of this year's From Here to Awesome festival. It will go down as one of the finest indie films of 2008. It's crude and bombastic. It's sublime and tender. In Westby's capable hands, the film shoots not one single blank.

The story is about fictional porn movie director Arturo Domingo, whose artistic adult films were the toast of the 1970s sexual revolution. In The Auteur, it's thirty years later and Domingo's star has faded. He travels to Portland, Oregon, to attend a movie theater's tribute to his classic work and to suck from the teat of his past glory, and hopefully mount a comeback in an era when porn is about video and not film, and about quick profits and certainly not about art. The Auteur tells Domingo's story via flashbacks to his 70s heyday, as well as documentary-style interviews, and of course, his wild lost weekend in contemporary Portland.

"It was kind of a Frankenstein digital production," said Westby, age 36, in a recent phone interview. The contemporary scenes were shot with the Panasonic HVX200. The flashbacks were shot on Super 8. And the contemporary documentary style interviews were shot with a Panasonic DVX.

Malkasian plays Domingo as a vain yet endearing movie director whose sense of himself is a man still living in his past 1970s heyday instead of the 21st Century. He carries himself as a man who is larger than life, like a great Italian auteur, a Federico Fellini. But the truth is much different from the world that exists in Domingo's mind. Malkasian's Domingo is overweight with large brown eyes that are typically veiled by large sun glasses. Domingo doesn't just smoke cigarettes but makes love to them. Sporting long bangs of hair, this auteur flips stray locks out of his eyes with the confidence and panache of a person who is accustomed to being feted and blinded by the glare of movie premiere flashbulbs.

When Domingo announces his identity out loud, which is often, the name dramatically rolls off Malkasian's tongue as if to warn the listener - whether it's a reporter or a motel maid - that they better pay close attention because they are conversing with "Somebody."

"I am AR-TUR-O DO-MIN-GO," Malkasian pronounces with a slow, verbal caress, not in an arrogant manner such as Paris Hilton might shout her own name to a clueless club doorman, but with the confidence that expresses a genuine sense of self accomplishment. If Domingo is anything he is a believer in the myth of Arturo Domingo, the artist, and in the golden era of the 70s sexual revolution that he represents.

Malkasian's performance is so rich, and he inspires multiple orgasms of laughter with his interpretation of the larger-than-life Domingo, but he also injects the character with pathos and humanity and empathy. The audience can't help but feel that part of Domingo's bluster is born from the knowledge deep inside that he truly knows that his time is past.

"Like every great artist that's past his prime he's struggling to hang onto his dignity and get back what made him special," Malkasian said.

Film geeks will love the homage to the 1960s-70s film school brats. In flashbacks, Domingo is younger and the passion of an artist in his prime radiates from every pore, think Kubrick directing Spartacus or Scorsese making Mean Streets, and then mix in a little of the mad genius of Coppola on the set of Apocalypse Now. Porn king Domingo helms such porn classics as "Five Easy Nieces," "Requiem for a Wet Dream" and "Full Metal Jackoff."

But it's the older and faded Domingo who is the heart of the picture, and to portray him Malkasian gained 45 pounds. This represents a greater than 25 percent weight increase for the normally 140-pound thespian. Malkasian put on the additional weight just prior to the start of principal photography. Westby and crew then spent three weeks shooting the bulk of the picture with the bulky Domingo, and then everybody took a 4-month break. Malkasian shed the extra weight during the 4-month hiatus, and then shooting resumed for a final 1 ½ weeks for the flashback scenes of the younger, skinner Domingo.

"I found it very daunting," Malkasian said of the weight gain and loss. "But getting fat was an important visual metaphor for Arturo being past his prime. It was important for the character to feel terrible, and that's how I felt personally. I felt physically awful."

Malkasian said that an actor can't leave extra weight on the set after an exhausting day of filming like he or she can discard a costume or a prop. "You can't escape it. It's not makeup. It's not wardrobe. It stays with you every night in the hotel."

Malkasian said his body rejected the extra weight and pounds began to shed as soon as they started  filming the scenes of the older Domingo. "I started to lose it the second I got on set," Malkasian said. It was a bit of a race to complete this 3 ½ weeks of shooting before a thinner Malkasian immerged, creating continuity problems.

In terms of preparing the character, Malkasian said that the weight gain, wardrobe and styling of Domingo's look was 90 percent of the task, almost as if it was impossible not to become Arturo Domingo under all that hair, sunglasses and constant plume of cigarette smoke.

"I was working from the exterior inward," Malkasian said. "It was almost as if the transformation was so real that I didn't have to do that much. With the moustache and the weight the character took over my body. It was just amazing."

  Melik Malkasian as Arturo Domingo in The Auteur

Westby said Malkasian is an extraordinary character actor who works hard to craft his characters. During the months Malkasian spent putting on weight prior to the shoot he was equally at work developing his Italian accent.

"He's like Peter Sellers. He's an amazing talent," Westby said.

The Auteur's plot reveals that Domingo has multiple agendas for being in Portland. He hopes to rekindle the romance with the love of his life who happens to live in Rose city.  And the director can't find anyone to finance his films anymore, and he's hoping that this tribute will re-kindle interest in his work. An unplanned reunion with porno actor Frank E. Normo (as in "enormous") brightens Domingo's prospects as he knows that if Normo will star in his next project - "Gang Bangs of New York" - that investors will assume their positions.

Actor John Breen nearly steals the movie with his hilarious and brilliant portrayal of Frank E. Normo, who was to Arturo Domingo what DeNiro was to Marty Scorsese. Breen is a talented improv comic and character actor and appeared onscreen last month at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival in Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy. Reichardt, Westby, Breen and Malkasian all live in Portland.

In terms of acting in the nude, no one's challenges were harder than those of Breen, who participated in onscreen simulated intercourse. Buck naked, Breen wore a codpiece to cover his junk during the simulated sex scenes to prevent things from growing too intimate, a wardrobe choice that put him in the esteemed company of actor Malcolm McDowell who wore a codpiece onscreen in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, a comparison that might certainly please Arturo Domingo.

Group nudity provided special challenges for the cast.

"It was kind of tense. It was kind of crazy. It was kind of fun. It was unforgettable," Malkasian said.

One of the film's most infectiously fun scenes is an all-night-fireside-drug-party-orgy-drum-circle at an imagined rural Portland nudist camp.

"That was one of the most interesting nights of my life," Malkasian, who himself appeared in the full-frontal altogether, said. "I was surrounded by naked hippie people."

A real porn film legend - Ron Jeremy - appears in The Auteur, as himself. Jeremy receives an onscreen credit in The Auteur as Technical Advisor. At the end of "the director's cut" of "Full Metal Jackoff," soldiers in Vietnam gather together for an impassioned circle jerk, one that ends in the only manner that such a scene could or should happily end - a bombastic explosion of semen rocketing into the muggy jungle sky. Which begs the question, which movie prop house specializes in providing realistic jizz?

"Ron Jeremy gave us a recipe," Westby said.

If Normo was Domingo's "DeNiro," then Malkasian is certainly Westby's. The two met in 1993 and became fast best friends. That year, they made their first film together - Subculture. Their artistic collaboration has been going strong for the past 15 years.

"Everything I've done starts with him," Westby said.

Like a lot of young DIY film artists who demonstrate promise via self-financed projects, Westby has a cautionary tale to share about getting an opportunity to make a feature with other people's money. In 1999, he made Anoosh of the Airways for $800,000.

"It's one of the worst movies ever made," Westby said and expressed similar sentiments for the several years he spent in Los Angeles trying to make art inside the Hollywood machine. Westby returned to Portland, and he found the DIY film movement as well as his voice.

"I feel like digital video sort of saved me," Westby said. He is thrilled to be part of the From Here to Awesome festival. He envisions that The Auteur may enjoy a limited theatrical release (it would likely earn an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, or it could be released without any MPAA rating), but the main focuses of distribution and exhibition will be DVD and VOD. The Auteur falls into the micro-budget category, which describes movies made for $250,000 or less.

Westby attracted attention with his 2005 film, Film Geek. The 72-minute Film Geek, shot with a DVX camera, was released in 2006 by First Run Features. (Click here to buy Film Geek).

"I still get e-mails every single day from someone who just saw it," Westby said.

Of course Film Geek starred Malkasian, and the actor got naked in that one too.

"It's kind of a running gag now. This is the second movie in a row where I've done substantial nudity. God knows what's going to happen in the next one," Malkasian said.

The Auteur is positioned for greatness and the first sign of the extraordinary 2008 that the film will enjoy was its recent invitation to the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.

"It was a real shock to get in there, for sure," Westby said. And it was a contrast to other film festival trips he has made to support earlier films. For example, Westby hired a publicist to flack The Auteur's New York debut.

"It was the first time I went to a festival and didn't have to hand out postcards promoting my screenings," Westby said.

Malkasian and Breen were also in New York for the event, one that included press and a red carpet premiere.

"It was a great way of validating this little movie we made in Portland, Oregon," Malkasian said. "People love it. Especially women and gay men. I'm really glad that it's out there."

At Tribeca, the film enjoyed five sold out screenings that climaxed in standing ovations. "People stood up and cheered during the 'Full Metal Jackoff' scene," Westby said, adding that the Tribeca experience was deeply satisfying on a personal level.

"My soul is sort of still out there on Ninth Street in the East Village," Westby said.

Westby has optioned and co-written (with Auteur producer Byrd McDonald) a script adaptation of Charles Willeford's 1971 neo-noir novel set in the Miami art world, The Burnt Orange Heresy.

"Something's going to happen this year," Westby said of the project.

Click here  to vote for The Auteur at From Here to Awesome and remember that today, June 6, is the last day to vote in this round of the festival.   The Auteur screens in July at OUTFEST in Los Angeles.

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