Porn has a bad rep. Or at least according to some. Because, in reality, there are just as many quality porn films out there as black truffles (i.e. a lot more than you think). The trick is to find them, and that’s where Antwerp’s new film festival SMUT comes in. In addition to talking about sex with a bunch of renowned porn filmmakers and performers from around the world, SMUT is showing a host of remarkable shorts and features … on the big screen! Here are five must-sees, according to Ben Van Alboom, promotor of SMUT.
In 2006, John Cameron Mitchell followed up his brilliant musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch with this small masterpiece: Shortbus, arguably one of the best and most inclusive romantic comedies ever. The film, however, also featured a lot of explicit sex scenes, so after its première in Cannes, Shortbus seemed destined for a ‘career’ on the bottom shelf of video stores. But now that those video stores are gone, SMUT is serving up the classic movie in a brand-new 4K print!
Headliners of the first SMUT edition are Bishop Black and Kali Sudhra. The former lives in Berlin, where he’s part of the queer porn scene and has worked with the biggest names in the game: Erika Lust, Bruce LaBruce, Morgana Muses, Poppy Sanchez, etc. The latter is an activist sex worker who lives in Barcelona and loves exploring dissident sexuality in her work. Both are coming to Antwerp to present (and talk about) a selection of their best work.
Fifty years after Ralph Bakshi’s iconic Fritz the Cat movie, SMUT has turned to Amsterdam’s leading animation festival Kaboom for a selection of the hottest animated shorts of the last couple of years. Including a hilarious (and quite informative) search for a woman’s clitoris.
Raw! Uncut! Video! is an awesome documentary about Palm Drive Video, a notorious ’80s porn production company specializing in surprising gay fetishes that even surprised gay fetishists. The documentary does not leave any stone, kink, or taboo unturned, and it also paints a pretty accurate picture of what AIDS and Reagan’s war on pornography meant for the porn industry in the 1980s.
A collection of short films in which girls just wanna have fun. And boys too. It doesn’t just feature Elin Magnusson’s classic Skin, featuring two people who explore each other through layers of fabric that prevent them from experiencing intimacy. There’s also Jennifer Lyon Bell’s new film Adorn, an experimental, titillating play in which the actors start off naked and end up dressed (and exhausted).
SMUT takes place on April 22-24 in De Studio, Antwerp. Tickets are available on the website of SMUT.
Photo credits: Caribe Lunar, De clitoris, Raw! Uncut! Video! and Skin
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