From Art to Intimacy: Inside the World of Porn Film Festival Vienna
Who knew that art could be so sexy? From April 10 to 15, Porn Film Festival Vienna (PFFV) is captivating the city with a wide range of provocative events, including erotic art exhibitions, sex-positive workshops, and pornography screenings across ten cinemas throughout Vienna. PFFV offers a unique opportunity to explore the intersection of art, intimacy, and human experience in an aesthetic and experimental manner. In today’s article, we delve into a hot, insightful interview with Jasmin Hagendorfer and Adrineh Simonian, by shedding light on the artistic vision behind this captivating event.
Porn Film Festival Vienna, Courtesy of Stefan Yazzie Herbert.
AS: I am Adrineh Simonian and I’m proud to be the programme director of the amazing team behind Porn Film Festival Vienna. Also, I am the founder of Arthouse Vienna.
JH: My name is Jasmin Hagendorfer, I am one of the festival directors together with Yavuz Kurtulmus. We founded PFFV almost seven years ago, and we are proud to still stand here. Adrineh was not part of the chore team, but she was one of the first people that has truly supported us. Together, we decided to make porn better, to make it more lustful, more honest, and more ethical. So yeah, big thank you to Arthouse Vienna. In the meantime, Arthouse Vienna is not only a film protection company, but also a streaming platform for ethical porn.
How did you come up with this festival, and why did you decide to call it the Porn Film Festival and not the pornography festival? Is there a difference to you?
JH: When we founded the festival, one of the first slogans was: What is Porn? For weeks and weeks, we discussed it with the team, Adrineh and I discussed it too. It became quite heated and was very emotional. You might think it’s easy to define, but there are many perspectives to take into consideration, such as legal framework and ethical considerations. We truly did not know what it was exactly and how we could frame it easily. Therefore, we decided to give this question back to the audience. In the end, it’s up to the people to know and to discover what porn actually is to them.
Porn Film Festival is a very long and explicit name. Pornography festival would not be very different, but I’m very fond of this name. It sounds a bit shorter and you know exactly what you get; it’s not swooshing around, calling it some erotic-whatever, it’s really direct in your face. With a topic where there is still so much taboo and shame in our society, it is important to call it very openly for what it is. At PFFV, we dive deeply into feminist spaces, queer spaces, ethical productions. We don’t leave out the mainstream because that can be good too. We simply offer a platform for porn.
What is the difference between Arthouse Porn and mainstream pornography?
JH: To me, mainstream porn is something where you really try to monetise everything and try to make a living from it. Currently, there are many debates around mainstream porn and the harmful, illegal sides of it. But there are also some percentages with good production, with a set of fairly paid performances. In small steps, it’s getting better. I always question, is Erika Lust, for example, mainstream? She is a feminist performer, who has been doing pornography for many years. In the meantime, she has become this huge company, and is selling a lot of films to an immense audience. Therefore, to me, it is very hard to draw an exact line of where mainstream porn ends and alternative porn begins.
At the festival, we try to portray many alternative, artsy things. Also, a lot of DIY-approaches, where people record things with their phone. It is important to offer a platform where we can showcase a variety of films to choose from.
AS: First of all, it is not good to simply be against something, you must look deeper. In mainstream porn, they focus on the fantasy of a man, the stereotypes of men and women. It’s okay to showcase the imagination and fantasies of men. There are companies that do really good work. But you should also look at the way porn is presented. Mainstream is fine, as long as they have good working conditions and contracts for performers. All epectations must be clear from the beginning – you cannot tell someone to perform a blowjob, and in the meantime, it is facial abuse. I believe that Arthouse porn and mainstream porn can work together. For us, the educational side is very important. We want to take away the shame and give people a platform to talk about it. Therefore, I think that it’s very important to work together, so that we can define mainstream into something else than what it is right now.
Film Still, courtesy of Porn Film Festival Vienna.
So, what distinguishes alternative porn is mostly diversity, inclusivity, and ethical considerations. Is there a difference in the aesthetic?
AS: Yes, there is a difference.
JH: Yes, because things are filmed from different perspectives, including female, feminist, queer perspectives. This way, you can depict yourself more in what you would like to see. When it comes to consumption, you must always ask yourself when and what you consume, and how you feel when consuming. We care about what we eat, the things we wear. Why don’t we care about our sexuality, our bodies, and the porn we consume? It’s still a consumption. You can consume porn with a lot of emotions, it does not always have to be lust. It can be sadness, loneliness, or stress release. Always do research on the platforms you consume, question the working conditions and reviews. There is a lot of porn out there, and everyone can find what they are searching for!
You have an exhibition with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, why did you choose this institution?
JH: As an artist, I always want to include art. Film is a wonderful media, but we always discuss how pornography goes beyond film, it can be so much more! People want to express it in many different ways. The art exhibition is made by the student union of the Academy of Fine Arts, who wanted to make a very big, sex- and body-positive exhibition. There is a huge space with 40+ (inter)national artists. The exhibition questions how we see sexuality and intimacy in the future. We live in a time in which technology has advanced a lot, with many artificial tools and rooms. When there is a new space, how do we perceive ourselves in these rooms, and how do we want to be depicted? Because that’s the thing with porn, it will ALWAYS be political. You can see all the bad things in a society in a very cheesy, mainstream porn. Misogyny, racism, discrimination, exoticisation – all of these things happen in society and thus are mirrored in porn! Of course, porn feeds this back to society, so it becomes an ongoing loop. In this exhibition, we want to open a room for discussion about where we are and where we would like to go.
June Hwajung, I was there, and I became another one, 2023. Ink, water colours on Korean paper. Courtesy of June Hwajung. Exhibited at Academy of Fine Art x Porn Film Festival Vienna, 2024.
This means that pornography can reflect everything around us, but so does art. Both disciplines have similar themes. How do art and pornography intersect?
JH: Wow, very deep question, and very blurry lines, I would say! I mean, who can really tell us what art actually is? I studied at a fine arts university, but I believe that art is for everybody and that everybody can make art. It is your own term, your own definition. The rest of the definition would include the art market, such as galleries and collectors. I don’t think they should define what art is. It’s not about the market to me, it’s about humans. Who says what is art and what is not in pornography? At the festival, we show how porn can be many things: it can be artsy, funny, political, happy, or sad. I would not like to decide what it is! To me, the whole festival is an art form and it is also a political statement.
AS: Everywhere in society, they believe that pornography equals masturbation. They see pornography as a tool to masturbate, to let off steam. At PFFV and Arthouse Vienna, we prove that pornography is not only something to masturbate. You can, of course, but you don’t have to! I always tell people that they can go to the Leopold Museum and look at Elon Schiele’s Reclining Woman (1917). The woman is not wearing underwear, she is laying down with her legs spread. You can look inside the vagina. And the people stand there and say, “Wow, this is so great!” But what they don’t understand is that they are looking at pornography! I want society to know that everybody consumes porn.
At the festival, people understand that they must go to a cinema to watch porn together. In society, this is very strange, because many people watch it alone or with a partner. But here, we offer a space to show you that porn can be a very different experience. This way, we can fight the stigma. Porn is art, porn is political; sexuality is part of our life and so is porn. Humans are voyeur and that’s the point!
Egon Schiele (1980-1918), Reclining Woman, 1917. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Leopold Museum.
Does this sound like you are ready to go down on art? Porn Film Festival Vienna is from April 10 to 15, 2024, and there are still plenty of events for you to visit. Check out their Instagram and programme for more information.
Special thanks to my dear friend Oliwia Pordzik.