San Francisco Porn Film Festival Seeks Entries for August Event
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Get ready to showcase your creativity! The San Francisco Porn Film Festival is accepting adult film submissions until May 7 via FilmFreeway.
Now in its fifth year, the San Francisco Porn Film Festival joins filmmakers, artists, and viewers for a multi-generational celebration of queer sexual cinema. Once again, it will offer both virtual and in-person showings to ensure access to a global audience.
Set to take place from August 16 to 31, 2024, the hybrid festival will include live broadcasts of screenings held at The Brava Theater in San Francisco.
To excited to wait? Select licensed films from past SF porn film festivals are available to watch online under Best of San Francisco PornFilmFestival at PinkLabel.TV.
Closed captioning and accessibility
“One of our top priorities, now and when we launched the San Francisco PornFilmFestival, is accessibility,” said festival marketing director Jiz Lee.
The Brava Theater, the location in San Francisco where the films will be screened, complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).
The adult festival will continue its simulcast to a virtual audience for people who have risks or cannot travel. It’s also an opportunity to share the experience with a global filmmaking community, adds Lee.
San Francisco PornFilmFestival’s website’s text can be viewed in more than 90 languages as well as screen readers. All films are fully subtitled or available with closed captioned in English. At this time, audio descriptions and ASL are not available. Please see the festival’s Accessibility page for more information.
You can view some of the disabled porn performers who appeared at the 2023 SF Porn Film Festival at DisabledSexGuide.com. They include autistic porn performer Oran Julius and Oliver David, an Australian man living with cerebral palsy.
Related Read: Listing of Adult Film Festivals
Global access to adult film festivals
Considered the US version of the renowned Pornfilmfestival Berlin, San Francisco PornFilmFestival began as a virtual-only event in 2020.
It took place 50 years after San Francisco became the first US city to host a public screening of hardcore sex. In 1970, it hosted the International Erotic Film Festival at the Presidio.
But when the pandemic shut down in-person events, Shine Louise Houston, founding producer and director of Pink & White Productions, went into action to keep adult film festivals alive.
To do this, she needed funding to create a virtual platform that was open to the adult industry and also suited the needs of a film festival.
Since successfully meeting the goal and creating the platform, Pink & White Productions has freely offered its services to several like-minded adult film festivals around the world.
Supporting erotic art
“Adult film festivals are a labor of love,” said Jiz Lee, a non-binary porn performer.
Lee is also the Marketing Director of Pink & White Productions, the production company behind the San Francisco PornFilmFestival. The small in-house team works with help from volunteers.
According to Lee, they presented PornFilmFestival Berlin, kinky film festival CineKink, Seattle Erotic Cinema Society (SECS Fest), Uncensored Fest, and London Fetish Film Festival. They also featured the debuts of both the Athens PornFilmFestival and Brussels PornFilmFestival as well as the return of Failed Films Festival.
“We were able to come to the rescue with last-minute hosting when Excentro Fest lost their online platform due to censorship of adult content,” added Lee.
For the first time, they also presented the PorYes European Feminist Porn Awards online to a global audience.
In past years, the San Francisco PornFilmFestival has been in part possible thanks to crowdfunding campaigns.
In 2022, the adult film festival raised US$13,000 on IndieGoGo. The funds, which surpassed their base goal of US$9,000, helped cover theater rental and basic artist pay, Lee told SexForEveryBody.com. In 2023, supporters could also buy pre-sale tickets or sponsor the adult film festival at IndieGoGo, where it raised over $5,000.
Related Read: AORTA Films Founder on the ‘Golden Era’ of Indie, Queer Porn
SF Porn Film Festival 2023
To get a taste of what’s to come, below is an overview of last year’s festival.
The 2023 SF Porn Film Festival featured a collection of 69 erotic titles from various genres such as documentary and experimental.
Starting on Wednesday, August 16, celebrations kicked off online with FORE/PLAY. This event featured a curated collection of adult films made by international and Bay Area filmmakers that can be accessed on-demand for 24 hours.
The next day was a must-see for fans of dyke and queer porn, said the organizers, and those curious about its often-forgotten history.
On Thursday, August 17, artists came together for a MEET/GREET filmmaker chat, followed by the festival’s opening film, the landmark 2001 dyke porn film “Sugar High Glitter City.” Directors Jackie Strano and Shar Rednour from SIR Productions held a conversation with scholar Lynn Comella.
Director Shine Louise-Houston’s 2000’s queer porn cult classic “The Crash Pad” was also shown.
On Friday, August 18, the adult film festival began its physical showings, broadcast live, from The Brava Theater in San Francisco. Local artists featured included “Hanky” director Ramses Rodstein and “Transit” co-creator Jiz Lee.
More local San Francisco artists included “CrashPad Quickies: Knotty Rell and Zuri Love” by CrashPad director Ava LaPrima and “No Man Like Me” by trans creator Jaq Quicksilver.
International erotic films included Australia’s “Into-You-I-See-Me” which showcased the intimacy of an interabled couple having sex, and the United Kingdom’s “Pointe to Please,” which explored the artistic parallels between ballet and pole dancing.
Back at The Brava on Saturday, August 19, the adult film festival featured short films with an explicit and experimental focus. Among them was “Big Sur Gay Porn” created by cult filmmaker Tom DeSimone, who revisited the production of a lost gay film while resurrecting youthful adventures on the California coast.
In “Melting Point,” a thermal camera uncovered new ways of seeing queer pleasure and desire.
The festival came to its grand finale with BIG/BANG. This program highlights sex scenes made by big names in the queer and ethical porn space: “Midnight Tryst” by Forplay Films (Los Angeles), “Beer and Loving with Las Bangers” by HardWerk Pictures (Berlin), “RITES OF SPRING” by Four Chambers (London), “Babygurl’s Big Birthday Bang” by AORTA Films (New York) and CrashPad’s “End of Year Special” (San Francisco).
Attendees of the in-person festival screenings were invited to Pop’s Bar for social mixers after the shows. The full 2023 SF Porn Film Festival screenings and offerings, including its programs and Q&A sessions, were available to watch on-demand until August 27.
SF Porn Film Festival 2022
The 2022 SF Porn Film Festival attracted more than 80 filmmakers, internationally based as well as from the Bay Area.
The adult film festival took place over four days and kicked off on Aug. 24, 2022, with Fore/Play. During this 24-period, virtual attendees could order videos on-demand, including a documentary from Madison Young that showcased the sexual history of the Bay Area.
On Aug 25, artists gathered for a live-streamed filmmaker chat at 11 am Pacific time. Later that evening the short lesbian erotic classic “Hey Sailor, Hey Sister” was screened before the feature film, Fred Halsted’s 1974 “L.A. Plays Itself.”
On the final two days of the SF porn film festival, the four programs aired for an audience in San Francisco were simultaneously broadcast to virtual attendees.
On Aug. 26, the festival showed explicit short films at the Brava Theater. The curated collection included the erotic films titles “Chaac and Yum” by filmmaker Roberto Fatal and performers Xav S-F and Snowflake Calvert (aka Daniel Arizmendi); “L’Ingrediente Principale” by Isis Tatiana Hockenos and Haley Myer; “Transform” by Domina Mara; and “Eternal Flame” by duo BeyonDeep.
“Dance.Destroy.Create” starring Marcus Quillan and Yiming Curiosity also mixed dancing and music in an erotic short film.
On Aug. 27, attendees could watch comedic and clever shorts at F*cking/Fun. The festival’s closing night film was “This One’s For the Ladies,” a documentary by Gene Graham that explores Black America through the underground world of exotic dancing.
Image sources: San Francisco PornFilmFestival/ SF porn film festival
The full SF porn film festival is virtual and includes a live broadcast of screenings at Brava Theater in San Francisco.
Jenna Owsianik is a Canadian journalist and sex tech industry expert. She is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sex For Every Body®.
Her expertise covers state-of-the-art sex technologies and the major fields driving innovations in intimacy: robotics, virtual reality, remote sex (teledildonics), haptics, immersive adult entertainment, human augmentation, virtual sex, and sexual health.
A trained journalist with a Masters of Journalism from The University of British Columbia, Jenna’s reporting has appeared on Futurism.com, Al Jazeera English, CTV British Columbia online, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS 60 Minutes, Global News, and CKNW Radio in Canada and the United States.
