I Am a Sex Addict essayist-auteur-protagonist Caveh Zahedi is working a fine trade in blunt namechecking at his own, indieWIRE-hosted blog, where earlier, he’s publicly micro-managed many of the publicity and distribution choices of IFC. IN “Dear Mr. Mark Cuban” Zahedi writes, “Apparently, Mr. Mark Cuban (the very wealthy owner of the Dallas Mavericks) has decided to pull our movie from the Landmark Theater chain (which he owns) because his TV [channel], HDNET, wasn’t able to get on Comcast (which is airing [on] Video-on-Demand… starting this Wednesday). The film was set to open this Friday at a Landmark Theater in Berkeley. Postcards have been made and sent out. Posters have been put up. Articles have been written. But he has decided to nix our screening… Well, dear Mr. Mark Cuban, I know nothing about your beef with the folks at Comcast… but I made a film which your theater has advertised as opening this Friday, and I would argue that it’s not exactly considerate to just cancel the screening (without warning) only a few days before it’s set to open. There are people who have nothing to do with your Comcast disagreement who will be adversely affected by your peremptory actions. I know you can afford it (financially speaking), but it strikes me as not exactly in keeping with the high moral standard you yourself set in the Enron movie you produced (which I thought was excellent, by the way, my congratulations on that). I sincerely hope that you will reconsider your decision. Perhaps you didn’t realize the effect that your decision would have on others who wish both you and the Dallas Mavericks nothing but the best. Yours Truly, Caveh Zahedi. In “Success Hurts,” he describes a SF Chronicle profile by Neva Chonin, which he says is “phrased in ways that make the truth just incrementally more absurd and dramatic. I’m not complaining. I actually like it. But it’s like looking into a distorting mirror at the funhouse. It’s fun, but is that really how one looks?” Here’s some of Chonin’s take: “Caveh Zahedi has suffered for his art [but] nothing, however, compares to the terror of success.

Blinking in the sunlight and looking like a small, nocturnal animal in black jeans, Zahedi sits outside his San Francisco apartment and recalls the moments before his film, I Am a Sex Addict, won a Gotham Award as “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You…” [Yr. correspondent was a member of the jury that awarded the prize.] “I was so nervous. I was hoping I wouldn’t get it so I wouldn’t have to go up and say anything… I was praying, ‘Please, God, don’t let it be me.’ …I think I have ambition, but I’m just really frightened… Of not being liked.” … As he putters around the book-strewn flat he shares with his third wife, Zyzzyva managing editor Amanda Field, Zahedi describes the film as both “an attempt to transcend wanting to be liked” and a quest to be loved without restraint. “It’s an infantile game you play where you don’t believe you’re lovable, so you push to see if there’s a point where the acceptance stops… It’s a similar dynamic with the audience: OK, will you still like me if I do this? And this? There’s a perverse pleasure in being rejected, I think.” [Much more to accept at the link, including an unlabeled spoiler to the film’s ending.]

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