Lectures

LECTURES

Lecture with film clips (in English)
23.10., 18:30, Eiszeit 2
“The Privacy Of Porn: All Is Intimate, Nothing Is True”
Stephan Wolf, Wuppertal

Etymology claims that porn means to talk about whores and prostitution. In this sense we’re reaching out for off-topic levels as we focus on private porn (almost an oxymoron, don’t you think?). Never mind if private porn protagonists get some allowances for their contributions, or if “private porn” is less (or even more) porn than mere conventional products – to be or not to be … the one you are, that’s the question (from the “private” actor’s POV). Truth, but a deceiving one, authenticity, but a false one, all intimacy – ruined? What is left of “private” when there’s a camera around, some director or even some emcee to conduct? We may draw nonpoint lines of demarcation between private and public, between un-, semi- and commercial – and discard them again: From pure talking about the unspeakable (own) sexlife (“Herzfeuer”), the discovery of everybody’s living room as a commercially fertile niche (Harry S. Morgan), some would-be new approaches to gain viewing pleasure by the exposure of personality (Erika Lust), to the online excrescences of sites like “Beautiful Agony” or “yuvutu”. Freedom for all – or just another reflex on industrial products? A broadening of porn territory – as, all in all, no differences are to be seen anymore anyway? My assumption: with the call for “action” all intimacy, even authenticity, escapes the set. But – perhaps we disclose hidden hints for some antitheses together?
Stephan Wolf studied film theory and media science; master thesis: “Recent Porn Tendencies: the Visibility of Female Lust” (1998). As freelance journalist he published several articles about porn over the years, with special focus on its distribution and marketing (e.g. “www.sex.com. Porn-industry as the Cutting Edge for Online Marketeers”, Promotion Business, WA-Verlag, Cologne). He recently released his (part-porn) novel, “Miss_Mut” (“Dis_Pleasure”) as Wolf von Wark.

Lecture with film clips (in German)
25.10., 20:30, Moviemento 3
“Vampire, Zombies, Mumien und andere Sex-Monster. Über die Vermischung von Pornografie und Horrorfilm”
Stefan Höltgen, Bonn
Seit den 1970er Jahren, also der Blütezeit des Pornofilms, hat es immer wieder Versuche gegeben, diesen mit anderen Filmgenres zu kreuzen. Neben zumeist Kriminalfilm- und Thriller-Hybriden sind es vor allem Horrorstoffe, die besonders häufig in erzählenden Pornofilmen zu finden sind. Der Vortrag versucht einen Blick auf einige Vertreter dieser Horror-Porno-Hybride zu werfen und dabei vor allem die Monsterfilme, in sich denen die klassischen Figuren des Horrorkinos unversehens in Pornotopia wiederfinden, vorzustellen. Im Zentrum steht die Frage: Was haben die Monster und der Sex als filmische Phänomene gemeinsam und warum ist ihr Aufeinandertreffen im Pornofilm so überaus plausibel?
Stefan Höltgen (Jahrgang 1971) studierte zwischen 1996 und 2000 Germanistik, Philosophie, Soziologie und Medienwissenschaften an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. Seit 2003 lebt und arbeitet er in Bonn als freier Journalist und betreibt dort ein Dissertationsprojekt zu “Medien- und Gewaltdiskursen im authentischen Serienmörderfilm” an der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn. Neben Buchpublikationen und Herausgeberschaften schreibt er regelmäßig Kritiken, Rezensionen und Artikel für Magazine und Zeitschriften wie epd Film, Der Schnitt, telepolis, IASL u. a. Seit 2001 gibt er das Magazin F.LM – Texte zum Film heraus und betreibt seit 2003 das kulturwissenschaftliche Internetforum www.filmforen.de.

Lecture with film programme (in English)
24.10., 18:30, Eiszeit 2
“There First. Presenting The “Slavesex” And “Pain” Movie Series”
Sergio Messina, Rome
It’s very easy to be kinky in 2008: there are clubs, associations and dungeons for rent; there’s an ample and very varied filmography, covering just about any kink you can imagine; there are websites to educate and entertain you, made by real practitioners for genuinely interested people. But there was a time, not long ago, in the eighties, in which being into very intense kinds of love, like BDSM or extreme fetishes, was very much a niche thing, when fetish cinema was very underground.
Porno at the time was mostly fiction-based, it had a plot and – unfortunately – actual acting bits. The editing, and sometimes dubbing, was often so extreme (and blatantly unlikely) that it was hard to get any feel for the situation: lousy dialogue, genital close ups, screams, the customary cumshot (not yet facial) and little else. Some German producers, like Dino, sometimes inserted some different action (like anal, pissing, or light BDSM) in mainstream features just to spice things up.
Two of the first widely distributed BDSM series, “Slavesex” and “Pain”, were in German, and mostly featured a couple, plus occasionally someone else. Their screen names were Anita, or Anita Feller, or Martina S (for Sklavin), and Master Günther. It’s very difficult to gather information about dates, but I believe it was in the early eighties. These movies were radically different from anything else on the market at that time, as far as I can tell. They had no music but strictly live sound, little or no editing, almost no close-ups but much wider angles; they weren’t shot on movie sets but in what looked like a well equipped dungeon. The people weren’t “actors”, and you could tell right away: which porn actress would be hanged by her tits – and look like she’s into it? The movies obviously showed a dynamic, a relationship, and an action that would probably happen even if the camera wasn’t there. The shooting style was more documentaristic than porno, and it would occasionally zoom in to capture faces, not crotches. The overall package, from the stark boxes to the bare credits and the abrupt ends, smelled like underground, although it was very obvious that these people weren’t post-punks, didn’t listen to heavy metal or wear rubber in public: they were very much into BDSM, but regular people otherwise.
It’s hard to calculate the impact of these films on the BDSM scene, but I believe it’s huge. At the time, this was the only credible BDSM one could see in action, comfortably at home, even in smaller towns; and if it’s true that porno educates (or miseducates) people about sex, this is ten times true for the so called “niche porno”. So one could guess that they showed first what BDSM (and more) was about to a large number of people in the world (including myself).
Anita / Martina then moved on to a brief but very varied solo career, appearing in quite a few German and Dutch productions during the second half of the 80s / early 90s (again, it’s very hard to gather information on dates). She never did straight porn thou: her parts were always fetish, or outright kinky. Sometimes extremely so. There are movies, both in the “Slavesex/Pain” series and in other productions, in which she performs things that probably had never been filmed before (including genuine tears and kisses on the cheeks – unheard of in porno), and some of those performances still hold as extreme after so many years (eons, if you consider the digital revolution). But this lady had class to burn, a style which to me is still unsurpassed today; at times she did look kinky, very extreme, even way over the top, but never gross or sloppy, or even nasty: she looked extra natural, just the way it should be. This woman’s filmography reads like a history of alternative sexuality of the last 15 years – but 15 years before.
The two films presented here belong to the early “Slavesex/Pain” series. They are shown as an example of seminal porno, as amazing films in their own right and to give credit and visibility to authors that opened a way that is very, very much in fashion in 2008 – but that they walked 25 years ago.
Sergio Messina (b. Rome, 1959) is a very unusual character in the Italian artistic and media landscape. Radio maker, musician (with a top 20 hit as a producer), journalist, performer, sound designer and teacher, his work is often described as “seminal”. His latest show is Realcore, the digital porno revolution – a presentation about online amateur erotica. Mark Dery called him “The Margaret Mead of alt-sex”.
At the moment, besides freelance writing, teaching (sound design and history of Pop cultures), lecturing and occasional music gigs, Messina coordinates the Sound Design school at Ied, Istituto Europeo di Design, in Milano. He is also touring with Realcore. He writes (in Italian) about Alt Sex in Rolling Stone Italy, about music in InSound and about urgent and dangerous topics in Rumore. www.sergiomessina.com.

Lecture with film clips (in German)
23.10., 20:30, Moviemento 3
“Pinku eiga, Roman porno & Ero guro – Anmerkungen zum Japanischen Sexfilm”
Marcus Stiglegger, Mainz

Da zahlreiche Pink Filme und Roman Pornos Sexualität und Gewalt verschmelzen, können diese als Teil des ero guro- (erotic grotesque)-Phänomens gesehen werden. Diese sexualisierte Darstellung von Folter hat kein Äquivalent im Weltkino und betont den künstlich-performativen Charakter dieser Filme. In Japan wird das als asobi (Spiel) betrachtet.
Die billig produzierten Filme besitzen oft einen politischen Subtext und bedienen sich experimenteller Stilmittel. Wie die Filme von WAKAMATSU Koji zeigen, haben Pink Filme das Potenzial radikaler Agitation. Seit den 1960er Jahren drehte Wakamatsu extrem bizarre und gewalttätige Sexfilme mit marxistischem Kontext. Anders als Wakamatsu gelang etwa ISHII Teruo eine Karriere im japanischen Major-Studio Toei. Zugleich können Ishiis technisch hervorragend inszenierte Filme als Paradigma der ero guro-Tendenz gesehen werden.

Bis heute gilt der japanische Sexfilm als einzigartiges künstlerisches Feld der Provokation und des Experiments. Dieser Vortrag will einen Einblick in die weite Welt dieses sehr spezifischen japanischen Genres werfen – mit Blick auf die beim Pornfilmfestival gezeigten Filme.
Dr. phil. habil. Marcus Stiglegger, geboren 1971, lehrt Filmwissenschaft an den Universitäten Mainz und Mannheim, sowie an der Clemson University (USA). Er studierte Filmwissenschaft, Ethnologie, Philosophie und Theaterwissenschaft. 1999 publizierte er seine Doktorarbeit über Faschismus und Sexualität im Film (“Sadiconazista”, 2. Aufl.). Stiglegger gab zahlreiche Bücher über Filmgeschichte, -ästhetik und -theorie heraus. 2006 erschien sein Hauptwerk Ritual & Verführung. Schaulust, Spektakel und Sinnlichkeit zur Verführungstheorie des Films. Neben zahlreichen internationalen Vorträgen arbeitet Stiglegger für die internationale Filmkritikervereinigung FIPRESCI sowie als Autor für die Magazine Filmdienst, epd Film, Splatting Image und Testcard. Seit 2002 gibt er ein eigenes Kulturmagazin :Ikonen: heraus (www.ikonenmagazin.de). Er ist Mitglied des Arbeitskreises ‘The Asian Impact’ der Universität Mainz, Autor für das Brockhaus Lexikon und bereitet gerade ein Buch zum Thema “Japanese Popular Cinema” vor, das 2010 in Edinburgh erscheinen soll.

Lecture with Film presentation (in English)
25.10., 18:30, Eiszeit 2
“Making Sex Media For A Radical Future”
Audacia Ray, New York
There are only a handful of companies that own the vast majority of media outlets. These media outlets treat real discussions and information about sexuality with kid gloves. At the same time, they aggressively pursue salacious scandal material and reinforce norms and taboos. Companies that focus on sexuality, like porn companies, also tend to reinforce cultural norms – yet there is a growing contingent of individuals, companies, and art collectives who are breaking the boundaries of sex and gender through sex media production and play. In this talk Audacia Ray, who is a producer and curator of sex media herself, will give a tour to some of these projects as they exist online, on DVD, in print, and in art spaces. The talk asks the questions: how can we challenge mainstream media representations of sex and gender? Is the feminist approach to these topics key? Are commercialism, personal expression, and art at odds with one another? What tools and communities are needed to create alternative sexual media cultures?

Dacia’s Love Machine NX D F
USA, 2008, 25 Minuten, Rob Daly & Audacia Ray, englische Originalfassung
Working in the adult industry has its perks, but the glory of free porn and sex toys wears off quicker than you’d think. When writer, porn director, and sex toy reviewer Audacia Ray receives a Love Machine for review, she realizes that her New York apartment just isn’t big enough for the both of them. Like many New Yorkers before her, Dacia turns to Craigslist to shed her unwanted miscellaneous objects. After deleting some emails with creepy propositions, Dacia welcomes potential love machine adopters into her Brooklyn apartment.

Plus live sex toy testing by Audacia Ray & Tralala Blümerant.

Audacia Ray edits the Village Voice sexuality blog www.NakedCity.com and produces the video shows Naked City TV and Live Girl Review. She is the author of “Naked On The Internet: Hookups, Downloads, And Cashing In On Internet Sexploration” and is the award-winning director and producer of the porn feature “The Bi Apple”. For the past four years she has blogged at www.WakingVixen.com.

Lecture and film presentation (in English)
24.10., 20:30, Moviemento 3
“Any orgasm is a small echo of the big bang, no wonder pornography is something of all times.”
Willem van Batenburg, Utrecht
Dutch film director Willem van Batenburg learned about sex the way we all do, but he is an expert when it comes to writing and making sex movies. His work includes 22 short movies, sold for worldwide distribution, two explicit porno-erotic features “Pruimenbloesem / Prunesblossoms” and “‘n Schot in de roos / Bulls-Eye” (both played to 200,000 spectators each in Dutch theatres) and on top of that he wrote a lot of sex stories for magazine publication.
If he had known during his career as an erotic filmmaker (consequently pornographer) that the best seed (semen) is (are) obtained after looking at pornographic movies, (a research result of the academic hospital Maastricht), then without a doubt he would have been still more motivated than he was already. But reasons such as fascination for the sex-sensual movement, inspiration by the work of the masters of erotic arts and interest in the moral and psychological changes as a result of the sexual revolution have their own value of course.
His extraordinarily woman friendly, very playful, easy-going but lewd and horny features were screened to a cheerful, enthusiastic public during the first two Pornfilmfestivals. This year, being a guest once again, he will show a selection of his short films. The muse from his features (Diana de Koning / Diana Queen, in Holland as famous as Linda Lovelace and Candida Royal together) is in at least four of the shorts. Her multi-orgasm in the picture “Young Girls, Lewd Sales” is a famous highlight of the film, a very authentic scene that is not easy to forget.
These short but powerful films will be preluded by a remix of a lecture he gave last year titled “Twenty-two Elements for the Making of a Pornorotic Lovescene” and a reading from his book about porn “Het komt allemaal weer omhoog – It’s All Going Up Again”. The show will be almost a real time trip to the lust-nostalgia of the sexy and sometimes very sleazy seventies.

Lecture (in English)
26.10., 15:00, Moviemento 3
“Beyond Pornography – Sexual Culture in Berlin’s “Lab.oratory””
Peter Rehberg, Berlin

“Berghain” fittingly functions as the name for the bulky building of the old thermal power station in East Berlin’s district Friedrichshain which is not only home to a dance club but also to the “Panoramabar”, and to the sex club “Lab.oratory” on the ground floor. While the place on the one hand successfully exploits the 1920’s fantasy of Berlin as a decadent city in an almost museum-style way, it also gained fame for a revival of gay men’s sexual culture as counter culture, as a place where traditions from the 1970s live on, and where commercial interests are intelligently negotiated with artistic ones and thus open up a space for alternative sexual politics.
In my lecture I will investigate the sexual culture one can enjoy and witness here with respect to questions of relationality and temporality. How does this environment, where the industrial layout perfectly fits the needs of a darkroom, allow for experimenting with social forms and what could be a narrative framework for those? Recent studies in queer theory have spelled out the ethical implications of a queer temporality, that doesn’t use the figure of the child as allegory for the future and as a guarantee for meaning in the realm of the political (Lee Edelman). To rethink our relation to futurity also opens up a space for a new relationality not governed by imaginary appropriations such as pornographic images but to articulate what Leo Bersani has called a “sociability of cruising”. Such thinking keeps a promise from 1970s counter culture alive which in large parts has been covered up by the discourse on HIV/Aids on the one hand and the fight for gay marriage on the other, namely, how does a queer life style provide new forms of living? The Sex Club Lab.oratory in Berlin puts these Foucauldian questions once more to the test: This time it is the Eastern border of the old West, Berlin and not California, where queer sexuality comes to the test.
Peter Rehberg hat Queer Studies und Deutsche Literatur in den USA und Deutschland unterrichtet. Er hat einen Erzählband (“Play”) und einen Roman (“Fag Love”) geschrieben und ist Chefredakteur der Zeitschrift “Männer”.

Film programme with introduction (in English)
26.10., 16:30, Moviemento 3
“X Marks The Spot”
Billy Miller, New York

“The Pornfilmfestival is ashamed to present a night of selected short films from the “Straight To Hell” archives, chosen by guest curator / editor / publisher Billy Miller. Miller is the editor of the underground cult publication “S.T.H.” (a/k/a The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts) based in NYC. Tonight’s program is realized in conjunction with an exhibit of male erotic photography, curated by Miller, at EXILE gallery, Berlin: www.thisisexile.com” (Billy Miller)

The film programme:

Giovanni, Brooklyn, NY
USA, 2008, 12 minutes, Darren Ankenbauer
Photographer / publisher Darren Akenbauer’s portrait of a young man releasing sexual tension in the tried-but-true old-fashioned D.I.Y. manner. See more at www.handbookmen.com

Video Documents Exhibiting Varying Degrees of Public Lewdness
USA, 1990’s-2008, 9 minutes, Anonymous “filmmakers”
An anonymous video mélange containing snips & snaps of unidentified men “getting busy” in public places. Don’t ask, don’t tell!

In the Dark We All Can Be Free: The Life & Photography Of Alvin Baltrop
USA, 2008, 6 minutes, Randal Wilcox
Photographer Al Baltrop (1948-2002) spent much of the 1970s and early ’80s documenting the under-the-public-radar anonymous sex scene of New York City’s infamous abandoned West Side Piers. In this segment, legendary artist AA Bronson gives an eyewitness account. Today, Baltrop’s photo documents offer some of the only remaining evidence of a phenomenon and a time now passed. With music by Beat Cops. (Excerpt from a feature-length documentary)

Latino Fan Club OutTakes
USA, 1990’s, 10 minutes, Brian Brennan
Latino Fan Club has been serving up hot “papi” cock in book and video form, for an admiring audience, since 1985. Tonight’s offering is but a sample of the mouth-watering fare to be found at: www.theoriginallatinofanclub.com

Your Smile Is My Sunshine
USA, 2002, 2 minutes, Michael Economy
While most obviously associated with children’s entertainment, the clown has often been used in contemporary art to suggest menace or perversion – which coincidently echoes a long history of reactions to male sexuality in general, and homosexuality in particular. In this brief tableau, these types of associations are presented “topsy turvy”.

Jackoff
USA, 2008, 7 minutes, Janine Gordon
Rapper and visual artist Janine Gordon’s work has been widely exhibited at numerous international galleries and museums and her photos have graced the pages of publications such as, GQ, Vogue Hommes, Aperture, Zing, to name a few. In this short film, she gives us an intimate portrait of one man’s quest for sexual release.

Love
USA, 1989, 6 minutes, Steve LaFreniere
Steve LaFreniere is an independent curator who has organized exhibitions at New York’s P.S.1 Museum and other spaces and can be found writing regularly for Artforum, Index, Vice among others. This short found-footage collage film explores the transcendental nature of human male sexuality to a special aural backdrop provided by the music of Alice Coltrane. Edited with the assistance of Suzie Silver.

A.M.G. Physique Shorts
USA, 1950’s-1980’s, 11 minutes, Bob Mizer
Bob Mizer’s “Athletic Model Guild” (A.M.G.) was the longest-running and first commercially successful male erotic photo studio in history (established in 1948) – and the “body” of work Mizer created (nearly one million individual photographs and films) represent the most prolific documentation of male flesh to date. For decades, Mizer photographed the trade that filed through his own version of the Hollywood Dream Factory. Along with his “Physique Pictorial” magazine, he also created a great number of photos and films.
Here we present a small group of very rare films spanning several decades – which have yet to be released on DVD (acquired directly from the filmmaker shortly before Mizer’s demise in the early ’90s).

About Straight To Hell & Billy Miller:
“Straight To Hell, a/k/a The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts” is a reader-written jerk-off publication containing true male / male sexual histories. First published in 1973, writer Gore Vidal has called the original series “The best radical paper in America”. Miller is the 3rd and current editor of the long-running underground cult favorite.
Billy Miller is an artist, curator, writer and independent publisher. His artwork has been exhibited internationally at various galleries and cultural institutions. He has curated shows and events at The Randolph Street Gallery, The Center for Book Arts, The Jersey City Museum, The 58 Gallery, Exile and Autoversion Gallery, among others. His writing has appeared in publications such as VICE, INDEX, K48, WON Magazine, and BUTT, and he is the editor and publisher of a number of independent publications, including “When Johnny Come Marching Home Again”, “No Milk Today”.

Lecture with film clips (in English)
26.10., 18:30, Eiszeit 2
“Scoring the Horizontal Mamba”
Bryin Dall, New York
Throughout the ages, music has played an important part in all films. Silent movies had complete orchestras to score the thrills and chills. When talking pictures came into play, music underscored tension, suspense, romance, etc. When pornography first came to film it was underground and silent. That would soon change. Early cinematic releases of adult films tried to mimic those of their Hollywood cousins. Plots and storylines abounded and with them came the need for music to accentuate each scene. Aaaahhh, but porno had something that those blockbusters didn’t . . . SEX! As the blue movies progressed, so did their soundtracks. It went from actual film scores to the all too familiar, boom chuck a wah wah that most people are familiar with. Modern-day porno, in an attempt to mimic the popular “reality” format, frequently eliminates music to create a more voyeuristic atmosphere. Join me on a journey through the history of music in pornography, as we discuss scoring the horizontal mamba.
Films to be included (but not limited to): I Am Curious Yellow, Deep Throat, Inches, Debbie Does Dallas, A Night At The Adonis, John Holmes Superstar, Pizza Boy, Pizza Girl, Stryker Force