An up-and-coming auteur director finds himself in over his head after his producing partner gambles away the film budget, leaving the director indebted and forced to direct porn in a mobster’s film studio. 

SYNOPSIS:

After his latest feature collapses during production, an auteur director, Nicholas Van Arsberg, finds his E.P. financed the project with a loan from Toulon, an African American shylock gangster who, aside from his gangstering, spends weekends as a Civil War reenactor. Without the means to repay the loan, Nick must go to work directing films in one of Toulon’s many enterprises, a porn studio, where he struggles to maintain his artistic integrity as he clashes with the swarmy Armenian studio boss, Joey. After a Hollywood Reporter article outs him as a porn director, he hits rock bottom when he loses a big-break studio deal, he's dropped by his high-profile agent, and gets roughed up after refusing to direct more porn films. Hoping for a way out, Nick pens a Civil War-era screenplay, Whistlin' Dixie, featuring Toulon as a Union general and porn actors from the studio as cast. The production is threatened by on-set chaos with an out-of-control drone, fistfights, and a farting horse. To Nick and everyone’s surprise, Whistlin' Dixie is a hit at the premiere and gets a distribution deal, releasing him from this indenture and fulfilling his dream to be a respected auteur director.