EDITORIAL
« The story of a life is continually reshaped by all the true or fictional stories that a subject tells about themselves. This reshaping turns life itself into a fabric of told stories. Both individual and community form their identity by receiving such narratives, which become their actual history for both parts. »
Paul Ricœur, Temps et Récit, III. Le Temps raconté.
Paul Ricœur, Temps et Récit, III. Le Temps raconté.
Everywhere, narratives take shape across all domains—social, artistic, religious, institutional, and political. They do not simply recount events: they weave a plot, give meaning to lived experiences, shape identities, and nourish collective memory. Through them, individual and collective experiences find their meaning. But everywhere too, ideological battles are fought—distorting, censoring, imposing, rewriting. Some narratives dominate, crush, and dictate their vision of the world, while others resist, reinvent themselves, and carve out new spaces. Every narrative becomes a battlefield where the contours of the world to come are drawn.
Dominant narratives today crystallize around reactionary forces that distort truths, rewrite history, and dismantle emancipation movements. The rise of far-right discourse, the undermining of social struggles, the denial of minority rights, and the attacks on feminist, queer, and anti-racist achievements reflect the resurgence of regressive narratives that burn the path toward future emancipations. Everywhere, ideological battles rage, reshaping our understanding of the present and controlling the future. Barely audible, marginalized voices are silenced, erased in favor of a monolithic narrative that denies otherness and
constructs a fantasized past. Faced with the return of a virilist ethos and an ideology of conquest, we refuse erasure and proudly uphold insurgent narratives—those that break the chains, celebrate our differences, tell our singularities, and pave the way for a future free from all domination.
Pornography, as both practice and discourse, is often reduced to a generative cause of sexual violence or a mere manifestation of systemic violence. Yet, it can be a space of resistance. Alternative pornographies embody a struggle to redefine sexual imaginaries, rethink power relations, and challenge normative boundaries. This festival stands within this battle, where sex, gender, and sexuality intertwine and redefine themselves, while confronting two major attacks. On one side, institutionalized progressive movements demonize pornography, portraying it as a vehicle for patriarchal violence and domination, against which one must fight in the name of equality. On the other, conservative discourse seeks to erase the very existence of the creators of these works—voices carrying narratives that challenge established gender norms.
Against these narratives that marginalize our practices and stifle any potential for social transformation through explicit representations of desire, we seek to build a space where new imaginaries can emerge, where sexuality can be reinvented, and where the hard-won advances of marginalized people are reaffirmed — through the embodiment of their lived experiences and the geography of their desires — as foundations for a future free from oppressive structures.
COMPETITION AND AWARDS
Who cums or squirts the farthest, who moans the higher, who could take the biggest... hand. There's many, many questions when we think about porn and competition. But what about a film festival? The idea here is not to create a concurrence, but to highlight creations that touch the deepest our psyché and that reflects at the bottom of dripping fluids the spirit of our porny time. To celebrate new ways of thinking pornography and to highlight productions that push the boundaries of what porn can be, or look, or sound like!
Since its first edition, the festival has held an international and national competition, with a jury board composed by 3 professionals from different backgrounds who will each represent an approach to pornographic or film productions. Our goal is to mix perspectives and to create a bridge between "traditional" cinema and the pornographic industry, by fostering interactions and connections between those two poles that rarely touch. With that in mind, our jury board is usually composed of a porn industry's personality, a porn film scholar or programmer, and a Belgian "traditional" cinema professional. Past jury members include names like Vex Ashley, Matt Lambert, Kis Keya, Carmina, Sarah Moon Howe and Nicolas Rios.
The jury delivers the Best International Porn Short, the Best National Porn Short as well as the Special Jury Prize. There's also a place for the public here, who deliver the Public Award to the film that has most captivated the audience.
For the Public Award, at the end of every screening you will be able to vote for your favorite film. The votes will be gathered on a ballot until Sunday, where it will be counted by our team before the closing ceremony.
Our prize is handmade by ceramist artist Simon Aubry Picaudot.
BISHOP BLACK
Bishop Black (they/them) is a Berlin based, Black British porn performer, sex worker, dancer, theater performer and director and all-round charmer. They have worked with some of the industry’s most provocative figures including Venice Biennale artist Shu Lea Cheang, Bruce LaBruce, Erika Lust, Paulita Pappel and many more
PUCK ELLINGTON
A transient feeling of bliss wrapped in earthly form; Puck, (she/they/any pronouns) is an artist / pornographer based at the crossroad of sex work, filmmaking and writing in Berlin since 2020. Embodying tales of queer, coloured, and unconventional desire, their work in all lanes arrives at a boiling pot of soft and sexy freak-hood. In their midsummer nights, pedestals dissolve like morning mist, giving rise to a platform that invites the soul to explore the depths of its own fantasies — most recently, this exploration comes in the form of Puck’s directorial debut, as one of four writer-directors on the anthological SPT film project “Onyx & Rosa”.
A transient feeling of bliss wrapped in earthly form; Puck, (she/they/any pronouns) is an artist / pornographer based at the crossroad of sex work, filmmaking and writing in Berlin since 2020. Embodying tales of queer, coloured, and unconventional desire, their work in all lanes arrives at a boiling pot of soft and sexy freak-hood. In their midsummer nights, pedestals dissolve like morning mist, giving rise to a platform that invites the soul to explore the depths of its own fantasies — most recently, this exploration comes in the form of Puck’s directorial debut, as one of four writer-directors on the anthological SPT film project “Onyx & Rosa”.
LAURENT MICHELI
Laurent Micheli graduated from INSAS in Brussels in 2007. He began his career in theatre, performing in Belgian and French productions for ten years before directing several plays, notably with the theatre company Madame Véro. In 2016, he directed his first self-produced feature film, Even Lovers Get the Blues, before joining L'atelier scénario at La Fémis in Paris. The film, praised for its exploration of sexuality, earned him a nomination for Best First Film at the Magritte Awards. After attending the Émergence residency in Paris, he directed Lola vers la mer (2019), starring Benoît Magimel and Mya Bollaers, who made her acting debut as an 18-year-old transgender girl. The film received critical acclaim, was released in around fifteen countries, and was selected for numerous festivals worldwide. It won around twenty awards, including two Magritte Awards, and was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the César Awards. Since 2022, he’s a committee member of the New Dawn fund. He’s also teaching at INSAS in Brussels. Laurent recently completed his third feature film, Nino dans la nuit, an adaptation of the novel by Capucine and Simon Johannin, produced by Wrong Men in Belgium and Haut & Court in France.
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT TICKETS HERE
We accept Cinéville and Article 27.
FESTIVAL PASS
Rue des Fripiers 15, 1000 Brussels
Quai au Bois à Bruler 5-7, 1000 Brussels
Galerie de la Reine 26, 1000 Brussels
Boulevard Barthélemy 20, 1000 Bruxelles
Rue du Marché aux Fromages 10, 1000 Bruxelles
©IDORU ASBL — 2024
CONTACT
spit@brusselspornfilmfestival.com