24
Oct
A film block from the Porn Film Festival Amsterdam revisiting historical sites of porn consumption and celebrating pioneers through archival footage and first-hand recollections.
Kissable Screens: Looking Back by Porn Film Festival Amsterdam
Various | 107’ | EN subtitles
This film block was screened at Porn Film Festival Amsterdam, earlier this year.
For a long time, the only places you could watch porn were small, not-too-obvious venues, and usually under the shadow of censorship and the constant threat of closure. Through archival footage and first-hand recollections, we revisit some of these sites: Theatro Gil Vicente in Barcelos, the Mineshaft in Marseille, Bada theatre in Seoul. We also meet Lynnee Breedlove, who spearheaded Homobiles, a queer cab service in San Francisco, and Luz Emilia García, one of the precursors of porn cinema in Colombia. We look back to cherish the oft-forgotten treasures of those who broke ground way before us.
The screening is a fundraiser for a nascent space for pornography and community in Cali, Colombia.
TGX
André Senra Azevedo | 2025 | Portugal | 8’
After the Carnation Revolution, Portugal became a democracy and opened itself to the world. One of its consequences was the spread of erotic and pornographic films. This documentary tells the story of how these films arrived at Theatro Gil Vicente, an emblematic cultural venue of Barcelos.
Les fantômes du hard
Lazare Lazarus | 2025 | France | 28’
In August 2022, squatters in Marseille stumble upon a treasure: the archives of the founder of France’s first hardcore BDSM club, the Mineshaft, which opened in 1967. What follows is an investigation to trace history through these archives, piece together a forgotten story, and attempt to build a lineage, a dialogue with his ghost.
The film explores how we might build lines of kinship and continuity with the queer generations that came before us. Central to the film is a meditation on memory, absence, and the intergenerational threads that shape queer existence. The film is made from the archives of the Mineshaft’s founder, preserved at Mémoire des Sexualités, a queer archive center based in Marseille: digitized VHS tapes, intimate photographs, lovers’ letters, objects…
Backseat
Rae Threat, Jiz Lee, Robin Astera | 2025 | Germany, UK, US | 6’
A short porn drive through the streets of Berlin navigates trans masculine desire and queer liberation. The video is an homage to Homobiles queer cab service spearheaded by Lynnee Breedlove, the 1980's safer sex PSAs from Gay Men's Health Crisis such as “Car Service” taxi porn, and the dream of a world that is safe to travel freely.
Paradise
Minki Hong | 2023 | South Korea | 30’
A fabulous storyteller presents a fascinating tale from yesteryear. A cast of friendly objects joins the storyteller, wandering through the theater while remembering days past when the space used to be filled with gay theater-goers. Their stories revolve around the cruising culture of second-run movie houses in Seoul but also expand to include their memories of gay bars in the Jongro neighborhood, offering a vivid depiction of the early years of South Korean queer culture during the 1970s and 1980s, which until now has been lost to history.
The Night of the Minotaur
Juliana Zuluaga Montoya | 2023 | Colombia | 11’
People wonder where birds go to die. My grandmother’s village had a lighthouse nestled among the mountains, a forest teeming with creatures, and an echo that resonated at night like a warm breeze. That was where the birds went to die. La noche del minotauro is a fantastic tale that draws on archival material to reconstruct the story of Luz Emilia García, a pioneer of Colombian pornographic cinema.
Filmhuis Cavia
Van Hallstraat 52-1, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Queer Places Nearby
Upcoming
Van Hallstraat 52-1, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Queer Places Nearby
Het Plantsoen
Restaurant in Amsterdam
Restaurant in Amsterdam
BOBBI’S🍺
Bar in Amsterdam
Bar in Amsterdam
Het Ketelhuis
Cinema in Amsterdam
Cinema in Amsterdam
Upcoming