“Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby.” That was the invitation issued by the 55th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) for a Saturday panel featuring filmmakers from across this year’s lineup.
Whether stylized and comedic body horror flicks or hardcore avantgarde depictions of physicality, the group of creators and curators discussed the challenges and opportunities of bringing sex to the big screen.
The panelists were Whammy Alcazaren, director of Noodles, Our Love Was Instant and Forever, featured in this year’s CineMart market, Gavin Baird, director of Klee, part of the IFFR Short & Mid-Length program, Axelle Vinassac, director of Soudain l’été, which screens in the same section, and Luisa F. Gonzalez, a film researcher, curator and filmmaker working for the Porn Film Festival Amsterdam.
The panel was moderated by IFFR programmer Cristina Kolozsváry-Kiss who highlighted: “As a programmer, this year, something strange happened. We all noticed that there was just this sudden influx of phalluses everywhere. It was really remarkable.”
She also highlighted that sexuality in the panelists’ films is used in a bigger context. “They’re sensual and they’re gorgeous,” she said, emphasizing that they also use sexuality “as a way to dismantle very powerful systems of power that have suppressed it.”
Klee is a body-horror sex fantasy that flips the romantic notion of Canadian settlement on its head. Described as “a tale of copulation and colonization that is both placid and penetrating,” it was shot on 16mm film.
Soudain l’été looks at getting back on the dating scene after a breakup as an ordeal. The experimental romantic comedy mixes sensual 16mm shots with intimate dialogue. Meanwhile, a synopsis for Noodles, Our Love Was Instant and Forever reads like this: “At the end of time at the end of the world, a single dad reunites with the ghost of his gay lover to find a way to survive climate change before aliens take over the human race.”
Has more explicit and more graphic sexual content been left out of film festivals in the past? Baird noted that he got into Rotterdam with his film, suggesting “it might be working in my favor.” He shared: “I don’t even know if any of my other films even had a kiss in them.”
Philippine filmmaker Alcazaren said that “coming from a largely Christian country, it’s hard for me to get programmed.” And Vinassac said a short distributor told her that her movie was “too explicit to be distributed.”
Alcazaren suggested that the mentioned increase in more explicit scenes in films submitted to the Rotterdam festival may be due to the broader availability of such content due to OnlyFans and digital media.
And Gonzalez shared that “pornography has always been there since the beginning of cinema,” but it has typically remained underground, with things depending on the country and region of the world. “It makes sense that these films are now also starting to invade festivals.”
The panel also discussed how films featuring sex and violence have often been conflated or grouped together and programmed in midnight sections. Gonzalez said that the Porn Film Festival Amsterdam is looking to screen its films in “safe spaces” outside traditional arthouse cinemas to open things up for its audiences.
Vinassac said she wants to make “romantic movies with sex in them,” which she feels requires no timing or other restrictions. Alcazaren shared that, “I do love a lot of the smaller screens that allow for conversations.” And Baird said he has been positively surprised that Klee has not been limited to festivals’ horror blocks.
The Canadian filmmaker, who drew laughter when mentioning that his mother handled the catering on the production, also shared that not only getting more explicit films to be screened can be challenging, but so can be the casting of actors. For example, he recalled that people would suggest he change certain scenes or the ending. His reaction: “No way!” After all, “my main interest was speaking to the colonization of the place that I’m from and the history involved with that,” with sexuality feeling like “the best way to express it.”
Asked about working on more explicit films with actors, Alcazaren emphasized his focus on making sure that actors are comfortable and “don’t feel exploited.” Vinassac said had discussions with her cast members about concerns and limits before shooting sensual scenes, also showing them footage and its framing to ensure an ongoing dialogue.
Baird shared insight on his use of an intimacy coordinator on Klee. “They started their involvement in pre-production and went through scenes involving intimacy” to ensure consent, discussion and comfort with the cast members, he said. “It made the process so much smoother.”
The sounds of sex are also something the filmmakers had to consider. Baird said his old-school 16mm film shoot meant he captured the visuals, but had to record the sounds with the cast later. Early on in the production, actors were “more self-conscious” before becoming more comfortable over time. “We had to record everyone again at my house, but by then, everyone was very comfortable,” he said.
“For me, it was very interesting to work with the sound, and we worked with my sound editor on different levels of sound,” Vinassac said. “You can hear breathing. We were trying to find a sound that is real, so it was very important to me that it was not in cliche form, but very realistic. But I also wanted to work with the subconscious, so we added a lot of sound that you can barely hear. But when you put it all together, it is a mixture, a texture that creates sensibility.”
And Alcazaren shared that, we didn’t get the right pitch of horniness” on set, “so we tried to reenact it, but we ended up getting snippets from actual porn.” He even let his straight sound mixer listen to some queer porn. Explained the filmmaker: “Queer sex and straight sex sound very different.”
Source link
