Since 1992, the Hot d'Or has caused some scandal and much  amusement at the Cannes film festival. Much missed last year when they took the party to the Lido in Paris, the world famous erotic film awards have returned this year in all their former glory. 

Cannes is the most important show that we attend," says Steve Vlottes of Wicked Pictures. "We're trying to educate the public that we are different. There are movies that some companies make for $8,000, they shoot one girl and seven guys in one room and that's it. Last year we did a movie called Conquest. We had real pirate ships, costumes, and shot it in Malibu." Satisfying the other end of the market is a company called Leisuretime Entertainment, which is run by Michael Kovacs. The key to Leisuretime's business is mail order. "We have a mail order company that mails about 2.5 million catalogues every month." Leisuretime is primarily a compilation company. 

"I like to call them themed videos. For example, if you have an anal video, you know it's going to be all anal and you're going to be happy with that video." Leisuretime's videos are image-led rather than story-led. "I think that's what the people want. I mean if you've seen any of these story-led features – they're pretty lame." Kovacs' mail order business makes it easy for him to spot a niche. "We are developing a niche we found in the market for gonzo films. These are mostly just sex with a lot of movement with the camera, which is more exciting to the eye I think." 

Other niches include older women and amateur type films. In the seventies, when the erotic film was in its heyday, it was not unusual for a film to be made for $150,000 and movies like Deep Throat and Emmanuelle were hailed as classics. "In the golden age of porn," remembers Canadian film critic John Harkness. "There were exterior shots, non sex roles, and non-relevant scenes. The collapse of theatrical porn happened in the mid-eighties when video arrived and it became incredibly cheap to make these movies." Henry Cobbold, who organises The 18 Awards in London believes that there still is a genuine market for hard core films with stories. 

"Women are saying to their husbands, 'If you're going to bring that stuff home, at least let it be real, and find something that can also be for me.' Adults ought to be allowed to make their own decisions," says Cobbold. "Especially about something as healthy as sex. So much of it depends on the censor's interpretation of depravity." 

European standards are much more liberal than America, Asia and the UK. "If you want to introduce a bondage scene into a film with real sex," says Steve Vlottes. "You can't do it, but you can tie her up, have simulated sex, and cut her head off." American producers are especially careful when it comes to AIDS and underage actresses. Just recently, four or five of the major adult studios, including Wicked, decided to go all condom. 

The fact that the adult movie industry is not readily embraced by the entertainment world has resulted in a sense of solidarity amongst its members. "We've been working at the magazine to try to show that this business is a real business," says David Cyrsho of Hot Video, which organises the event. For the mainstream Cannes market, the Hot d'Or will always be something of a curiosity. "We work in a fantasy industry, so there are all sort of fantasies about us," says Cyrsho. "At the end of the day, we do whatever we want."

By one of those neat quirks of scheduling, Day 7 throws up both the youngest director in the festival and the oldest. There is only 70 years between them. Flying the flag for youth is the 18-year-old Iranian Samira Makhmalbaf, whose debut feature, Sib (The Apple), screens in Un Certain Regard. 

Meanwhile, showing that age cannot wither him, is the truly venerable 89-year-old Portugese auteur Manoel De Oliveira, who shot his first film way back in 1929. His latest opus, Inquietude, screens today out of competition. 

Quite understandably, De Oliveira gets exasperated with journalists who write only about his longevity and not his films. Equally understandably, the journalists simply can't resist marvelling at a filmmaker whose career stretches all the way from the Jurassic era of silent cinema right through to the present day.

Also screening in Un Certain Regard is John Maybury's long-awaited Francis Bacon pic, Love Is The Devil. Malcolm McDowell (Clockwork Orange, If) was originally cast as Bacon but pulled out only weeks before shooting began, thereby earning himself the not altogether affectionate nickname, Malcolm X.

Maybury cites Nic Roeg's and Donald Cammell's Performance as one of the key influences on the film. The similarity, he says, lies in that very "peculiar English combination" of working-class gangster culture and the rarefied world of upper-class bohemia. 
Geoffrey Macnab