With as succinct a title as Bertolucci’s The Conformist, James Westby’s The Auteur follows Italian director Arturo Domingo, a man of uncompromising vision. (“We don’t have the budget for rose petals,” a production designer patiently pleads onset, to which Domingo replies, “Do you not hear what I’m saying?” then continues with his explanation of how he wants those rose petals to fall.) Unfortunately, Domingo has fallen on hard times. Having lost control of his masterpiece to scissor-handed producers years ago, financing for the epic that will return the Italian auteur to his once celebrated status now has been pulled unless he can get his onetime muse to work with him again.

Never mind that Westby’s film is fiction, and that the title of Domingo’s masterpiece is “Full Metal Jackoff” – nor that former muse Frank E. Normo (a hilariously happy-go-lucky John Breen) won’t consent to play Bob the Banger in the epic “Gangbangs of New York” because the part requires circumcision. Westby has crafted a brilliant little indie satire – a “Blue Movie” for cinephiles. Where Southern satirized Hollywood with his Oscar-winning director turned pornographer King B., Westby takes this conceit one step further with Domingo – the “Kubrick of porn,” as one fan enthuses (though as the laugh-out-loud profound Melik Malkasian plays him, the “Zizek of porn” might be a better description) – using porn to satirize moviemaking, the auteur theory, film culture itself!

This point is made explicit in a scene in which Domingo, staying at a hotel in Portland where he’s in town to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at a film festival, channel surfs till he stumbles upon an “At The Movies” for hardcore flicks, with the Siskel-and-Ebert-esque duo griping and giving a “two dicks down.” Of course, this only occurs after he first lands on “Let’s Get Fucked!” a reality-TV travel/porn show that’s turned its host Normo into a household name. (Domingo is later invited to the set where he’s dismayed to learn that the show’s shot with only two cameras on video – not film! – then greets Normo’s chipper but frumpy, brunette wife who happily chirps, “I cook, I clean, I fluff – all in a day’s work!”)

And The Auteur itself is as much a tribute to cinema as it is a spoof, made with every bit the detailed TLC as the tribute Domingo receives at the local art house, complete with a retrospective documentary in which the auteur recounts finding copies of both Hustler and Cahiers du Cinema under his parents’ bed; a talking head gushes about what a “beautiful, homoerotic epic” “Full Metal Jackoff” was before the producers re-shot and re-edited to make it hetero; and clips from Domingo’s best work, including “Five Easy Nieces” (Domingo’s first feature-length porn that he made while at USC film school where he minored in political science), “Broadway Danny’s Hos,” “Snatch Adams,” “My Left Nut,” and, of course, “Requiem for A Wet Dream.” Westby cuts his film to move like a jubilant bouncing ball to the rhythm of the zinging dialogue, shows a reverence for the art of cinematography, evidenced especially in some exquisitely composed medium and long shots on the Portland streets.

For really, is there all that much difference between filmmaking and porn making? Both industries are dirty businesses hostile to artists. One woman in the audience even confronts Domingo about the copycat clubs that sprung up around the country after his “Dyke Club” (sample line, “You want me to fuck my imaginary friend?”) was released. Flashbacks to Domingo during the tornado-hit making of “Full Metal Jackoff,” a disheveled mess sporting Kubrick-like wild hair and parka, that began the downward spiral to his directing schlock like “Purple Vein” and “While You Were Queefing,” would be heartbreaking if they weren’t so damn funny. (“You will stay here in Vietnam!” Domingo screams at his girlfriend and one-true-love Fiona. “We’re in Ohio, Arturo,” she replies.)

But Westby knows that third acts require redemption so Domingo does finally get to screen “Full Metal Jackoff: The Director’s Cut” at the fest even if he doesn’t get the girl. And when that final scene, a riff on Apocalypse Now right down to the sound of The Doors appears, a slo-mo circle jerk giving way to silly string on faces, you want to stand up and cheer right along with Frank E. Normo and the rest of his horny troops. (Spoiler: Domingo also gets financing for “Gangbangs of New York” so no, he won’t be settling for directing the low budget indie “Me and You and Everyone We Blow.”)

The Auteur screens Saturday February 28th at 9:00 pm at Anthology Film Archives in NYC as part of this year’s CineKink Film Festival.

Lauren Wissot’s and Roxanne Kapitsa’s Un Piede di Roman Polanski also screens Saturday, February 28th at 6:45 pm as part of the festival’s “Twisted Knickers” shorts program.

For information on both these events and more visit cinekink.com.