Even as its architects were painting a target on his back, director Martin Gero was unaware there was a Bill C-10.

The wakeup call was literally that.

"It was one of the most surreal days of my life. I live in Vancouver and got a call at, like, 7 a.m., and they said, 'This is So-and-So from The National. We need you to come in and comment on Bill C-10. And I was like, 'Huh? Who are you looking for?'

'Is this Martin Gero?'

'Yeah.'

'Did you direct Young People F---ing?'

'Yeah.'

'And you don't know about Bill C-10?'

'No, what's Bill C-10?'

'Um, I'm going to give you some time.' "

Gero consulted with his producer Steve Hoban, who certainly had heard of the bill, now before the Senate, which would give the federal government the right to withhold tax credits from films it deems offensive (while still offering those same credits to Hollywood films, no questions asked). In defence of the bill, supporters had wielded like a cudgel the name of Gero's as yet unreleased, largely unseen sex comedy.

"All of a sudden I'm in CBC headquarters, on The National with the newsroom backdrop, about to talk about public policy," Gero says. "I was like, 'My life has taken a turn for the weird.'

"They were throwing things at me like, 'They're putting you forward as the reason they're suspending tax credits in this country.' And I'm like, 'Oh man, really? I'm ruining tax credits for everybody?'

"The best part on The National was the people they got comments from were David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan and me. So now I refer to them as my peers. We're the people you go to when the s--t hits the fan."

Ironically, at the '07 Toronto International Film Festival, Gero was touting the title as the reason his warm and funny film about five problematic sex encounters got made in the first place.

"It was insanely easy to get made, and the title had a lot to do with that," he said at the time, in an interview with writing partner and actor Aaron Abrams.

"It's a nice hook to say 'Are you interested in seeing a movie called Young People F---ing?' I mean, who's going to say, 'No?'

"And it was the way to go because the movie is not that expensive. It's five locations, no special FX or fancy camera moves. It was designed to be a showcase for great acting and required very little financial investment."

Their motives were born of being tired of romantic comedies that stopped at the bedroom door.

"Most of them end with the kiss. But life and death is in the bedroom, that's where I've been the most terrified and excited, where the most interesting stuff happens. So we made an entire movie about it."

Abrams adds that they agreed about a theme -- the near impossibility of separating sex and love.

"We wanted to write a relationship movie, and we didn't know how to do it without it being about sex. We're the first generation that really tried to separate love and sex, and y'know, I think we're failing at it miserably."

Thus we get the Friends With Benefits experiment (Abrams and Carly Pope), the threesome with the annoying couple and reluctant roommate (Ennis Esmer, Natalie Lisinska and Peter Oldring), the in-a-rut couple (Kristin Booth and Josh Dean), the first-date with a womanizer (Diora Baird and Callum Blue) and the sex-with-the-ex (Sonja Bennett and Josh Cooke). Each unconnected encounter is cleverly divided into chapters, from setup to foreplay to "the act" to orgasm to afterglow.

During the festival, Gero jokingly called Young People F---ing "the ultimate date movie," adding "I dare you not to get laid if you bring a date to this film."

Asked if he would ever make Old People F---ing, he laughed and said, "That's going to be my last film. Actually, I was sitting around with a group of 60-year-olds who saw it, and they were lovin' it, elbowing each other and saying, 'That's just like you and so-and-so.' "

Speaking of the aged, Gero was pleased to see some Senators show up at a special screening for politicos in Ottawa May 29 (though the Conservative caucus boycotted the screening).

"When (the distributors) Maple Films said let's do this, I said, 'Okay, but I don't think anybody's going to show up. But there were policy consultants, MPs, some Senators showed up. And they really enjoyed it. The first five or 10 minutes, they kinda sat there as if to say, 'Who do these guys think they are?'

"But then you realize five minutes in that this is going to be a funny movie, and, dare I say, sweet. It was one of our best screenings, and one of our most vocal audiences.

"Afterward (Nova Scotia Liberal) Senator Terry Mercer came up and was very nice and said, 'These are the type of movies Canada should be making. I think the Harper government needs to come here, watch this movie and just relax."