For four years now, Brussels has had a dirty little secret. Every year in spring, hundreds of people come together to watch porn on the silver screen during the Brussels Porn Film Festival. Are you coming?
What started as a small collective of volunteer filmmakers, sex workers and porn enthusiasts joining forces to bring pornography to the European capital, has now evolved into a full-blown organisation with separate teams for programming, subtitles and communication – even sponsored by the Brussels Government.
Over four days, they will show 71 films – ranging from long-form features to cartoons and documentaries – in various cinemas in the city, host several sex-related workshops, performances, a porn fair and a roundtable discussion.
However, the sixty-nine thousand dollar question is and remains: what makes people want to leave the privacy of their bedroom to go out and watch pornography – something many people are even more tight-lipped about than their actual sex lives – in a room full of strangers?
The Brussels Times speaks with porn actors, directors and performers to find an answer.
Not your regular fix
"The festival creates a specific kind of collective energy. There is nothing else I can compare it to," says Miguel Soll, a Brazilian photographer and co-founder of the Brussels Porn Film Festival (BPFF). "The feeling of collectiveness and sex positivity is amazing, and it feels really special to be able to experience that with everyone else."
On top of that, the festival does not show the kind of porn you can easily find on the usual PornHub or RedTube websites, he says. "The films we will be screening are difficult to access outside the festival, they are barely on the internet."
Even if the themes go beyond desire and can be powerful tools to criticise oppression, the explicit scenes mean that they are not accepted in regular film festivals either. "There is so much stigma, and people are so afraid of showing sex that those films are not accessible. So the festival is a very good opportunity to access those works, because it's the only place where you can see them."
For Jamie Butine, a performer and sex worker in Brussels, the festival is a good way to start a conversation about sex, to take it out of the atmosphere of closed curtains and neon lights it is so often shrouded in. "It is quite taboo to watch porn in a theatre, but I think getting horny together is a collective experience. It is a way to feel our own desire and connect with the desire of other people," she says.
Vibrations. Credit: Miguel Soll
And importantly, it might help people explore their sexuality, discover new practices, and broaden their minds. As a transgender performer and director, Nova Lov describes her first experience at the Brussels Porn Film Festival as mind-blowing. "It was so inspiring and made me feel that my own sexuality is legit and that there is a way to express it."
"It is a very good opportunity to explore the broad spectrum that is sexuality, especially when you go to a screening in a very specific niche," she says. "You can discover new things about sexual identities, practices, bodies, genders... To me, it is the best way to broaden your mind."
The festival organisation aims to showcase as wide a range as possible in its selection of films, and does not want to separate the screenings per sexuality or sexual acts.
"We do not want to recreate the way people watch porn on the Tube website, where they go for their preferred 'tag'. We really want to focus on the narrative and create different connections that are maybe not immediately obvious," Soll says.
Porn with friends?
Like with regular film festivals, entries are judged and selected based on their cinematic value, but not only. "We take into account representation as well: which bodies are represented, which sexuality, which practices, which genres? It is not only about what the films are, but also about what they represent – for themselves, for their communities. So we try to have that broader look."
All of the people The Brussels Times has spoken to have a film that will be screened during the festival. One of them is Popo, an actor and director who made 'Pornatopia' – a documentary about making a porn film with friends. "Through the documentary, we also made the real porn. So we had like two movies at once."
"We filmed in front of one camera for like the porn movie, but also in front of another camera for the documentary – which was quite interesting in the ways we had to figure out to communicate. The actual porn film is not ready yet, but the documentary will be screened," he says.
Pornatopia. Credit: Popo
Nova Lov's short film, called 'Tears of Desire', can be seen in the kinky category, 'Beauty Hurts'. "I'm a former nurse, and this film is a one-time experience of how I used this experience with a partner. I put a venous catheter in my partner's arm to collect their blood, and then I drink it. It is one of the most intimate ways to share love with someone I have experienced."
Meanwhile, Jamie's film was shot during one of the previous editions of the festival and is called 'You can't find a way to make your bitch bark?' – a five-step tutorial to get there. "It is a BDSM movie that centres on the femme identity. It is a very short movie, and it is a fun movie. For me, it is super important to have fun while watching porn and having sex."
Solls' entry is a personal story called 'Vibrations' about his coming out as a pornographer. "It is a little bit of a love letter to pornography, and what that space allowed me to be like. Before I was ready to say I was gay, I could already watch porn and live my sexuality through that. So within the repression, I could feel liberation. To make this film, I had to watch videos of my depressed, closeted teenage years, but then I could go to the liberation that is pornography. So it is very personal."
Pimp your paddle
To translate the sex positivity from the big screen to the real world, the festival is organising a number of porn and sex-related workshops as well. "They are a big and well-loved part of the festival. The idea is that they are linked with making porn, but also for people to discover their own sexuality, as well as fun stuff," says Butine.
Before the festival even started, she set up the three-day 'Kino porno' workshop for people to create their own porn for people who have not done it before. "During the festival itself, we have workshops on how to use sex toys in a non-gendered way, or on safer sex. We also have a lap dance workshop, and more crafty sessions such as 'Pimp your paddle' and 'upcycling kinky,' for example."
There are interactive workshops where people can interact with their literal bodies and also their imagined bodies, which was created by the trans designer to allow people to interact with the body that they want to have. "Most of them are fully booked already, with waiting lists even," she adds.
Soll adds that they are aiming to break the barrier of the screen and get into action. "Even though it is not cinema, it makes people feel closer to the story that we are telling and the feelings we are showing on the screen," he explains. "So everything is tied together."
More information about the festival and the screenings can be found here.
