by Nanette Ashby
In this episode Nanette Ashby dives into the world of Porn Film Festivals together with organiser Jessica van der Berg. Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, Jessie is a copywriter, Sextech School graduate, and speaker on masturbation, vulvas, and pornography. She is part of the team behind the Porn Film Festival Amsterdam. She is also the organiser of SONA, South Africa’s first Sex of the Nation Address – a sex-positive, consent-centered, post-porn festival and fundraiser for the sex worker movements Sweat and Sisonke. Through her agency After Dark, she works on sex- and intimacy-focused projects that help dismantle shame, build connection, and remind people they’re allowed to feel at home in their own bodies. Together, we explore how pornography can be a cultural lens. Jessie shares how porn film festivals reflect local politics, sexuality, and social change, creating safe, community-driven spaces for dialogue, art, and self-discovery. From disability representation to ethical production and taboo-smashing storytelling, we unpack how film can humanise misunderstood industries and spark real conversations. Think of this episode as your behind-the-scenes all access pass to porn film festivals. We also discuss tips and tricks for those of you who would like to start a similar project in your area. But first, go get your tickets for the upcoming Porn Film Festival in Amsterdam! It’s from the 26th of February to 1st of March this year. Expect four days of screenings, industry and community events, plus opening and closing parties — all designed to bring film, sexuality, and community together. Are you ready to see porn through a different lens?
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Episode Transcript:
Jessie van der Berg
Film is the ultimate empathy tool.
Nanette Ashby
Welcome to the Gender and Diversity Podcast Culturally Curious, where arts and culture have never been more titillating with me you host, Nanette Ashby.
In this episode Nanette Ashby dives into the world of Porn Film Festivals together with organiser Jessica van der Berg. Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, Jessie is a copywriter, Sextech School graduate, and speaker on masturbation, vulvas, and pornography. She is part of the team behind the Porn Film Festival Amsterdam. She is also the organiser of SONA, South Africa’s first Sex of the Nation Address – a sex-positive, consent-centered, post-porn festival and fundraiser for the sex worker movements Sweat and Sisonke. Through her agency After Dark, she works on sex- and intimacy-focused projects that help dismantle shame, build connection, and remind people they’re allowed to feel at home in their own bodies. Together, we explore how pornography can be a cultural lens. Jessie shares how porn film festivals reflect local politics, sexuality, and social change, creating safe, community-driven spaces for dialogue, art, and self-discovery. From disability representation to ethical production and taboo-smashing storytelling, we unpack how film can humanise misunderstood industries and spark real conversations. Think of this episode as your behind-the-scenes all access pass to porn film festivals. We also discuss tips and tricks for those of you who would like to start a similar project in your area. But first, go get your tickets for the upcoming Porn Film Festival in Amsterdam! It’s from the 26th of February to 1st of March this year. Expect four days of screenings, industry and community events, plus opening and closing parties — all designed to bring film, sexuality, and community together. Are you ready to see porn through a different lens?
Hi, it’s so nice to have you on the podcast. Could you introduce yourself please?
Jessie van der Berg
I’m Jess. I am South African. I’ve been living in the Netherlands for almost five years. I moved here from Dubai and I’m a copywriter. I work in marketing, though I’ve lately found my footing in the whole world of sexuality, everything from sexual health to pornography to sex toys. The last two or three years have really been focused on sex, professionally. And yeah, I mean, I guess I’m here to talk about PFFF, the Porn Film Festival Amsterdam. And I’ve been part of that for three years. It’s been going for three years. So I guess like pretty close to its inception.
Nanette Ashby
To jump in for people who have never heard of porn film festivals before, how would you describe porn film festival? What does it entail?
Jessie van der Berg
You know what, it’s almost like a time capsule. It depends very much on where the festival is being held, which year it’s being held in. Porn film festivals all have different approaches. Some of them curate and go out looking for films for a specific narrative they want to get across. And a lot of them have different reasons or intentions for existing, like they really want to focus on sexuality or queer rights are really important to them or bodily autonomy is really important to them. And they want to communicate using pornography, because pornography is the most uncensored genre that there is, right? You can really say anything. The minute people are, the minute people are fucking, you can start to talk about war, you can start to talk about abortion, you can start to talk about so much when people are naked and doing these intimate things. So um, it really does give you this open platform. Berlin has one of the oldest running most institutional porn festivals. That started in 2006. And once you’ve been going for 20 years, you’ve gone through a lot of porn, you’ve gone through a lot of themes, you’ve gone through a lot of ways of working. So they’ve got this huge platform for a bunch of different films and different themes. But I would liken PFFA mostly, or compare it most to the Warsaw Porn Film Festival or maybe Brussels, in that, we work with an open call. Every year we have an open call that stays open for about two and a half months. We get submissions from all over the world. And you can really see that people are making something as a reaction to what’s happening in their country or in their lives. So something you get from Korea where pornography is illegal will be very different to something you get from Amsterdam where sexual rights have been in the press and have been moved forward for years.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
You really have to consider the baseline of where you’re getting the pornography from. So yeah, I would say porn film festivals, they really, they exist all all over the world. Many countries have them if it’s legal. And if it’s not legal, you kind of change the name, you dance around the topic, but they do exist underground too.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
I would say the porn festivals are almost a reaction to mainstream pornography, almost, not quite, but like your pornhub is very titty titty bang bang. Desire is imposed on you, what to desire, how to fuck, who to fuck, what to find attractive. And the porn film festivals have more of an open gaze, more space to consider your sexuality, to develop sexuality, it’s a lot more open.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
So you go there, you drop your guard. You’ve been to Berlin Porn Film Festival, right?
Nanette Ashby
Yes, I’ve also been to Amsterdam last year. That was my first festival.
Jessie van der Berg
Okay, amazing, how was it for you?
Nanette Ashby
It was really nice. I think it was a good one to start with for me personally, because then when I went to Berlin last year as well, I kind of knew what was coming and I was a bit more prepared because, Amsterdam felt more cozy and welcoming and more community based, a little bit more. It was a great one to start with, in my opinion. And then the Berlin one was of course much bigger, much more, um, elaborate, and it was also Berlin. I think that was a good way to start. I still want to go to Brussels and Vienna and Warsaw. At some point, I want to do all of them, but that’s my personal project.
Jessie van der Berg
It’s so good. Also add Athens to your list.
Nanette Ashby
Yes, yes, it’s on the list.
Jessie van der Berg
We really strive to be as accessible as possible. And that includes financial access. We understand that people are sometimes taking a risk like, oh my gosh, do I really want to watch porn in public with strangers? And if we lower the barrier to entry, if we make it really inviting, really financially intriguing, more people are willing to take that risk.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm. It also surprised me because you mentioned the boundaries regarding legality. I was actually surprised that there isn’t an official one in the UK. And I only learned this year that’s because of the legal situation.
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, in the UK like sex work laws change all the time. And there is one worth looking at. They’ve launched recently called the Erotic Film Festival, EFF. We’ve been in contact with them. A lot of the festivals do have strong feminist undertones, and the porn is perhaps more gentle or the ethics are the core part of the porn. Even in, I think it’s Almere, there’s going to be a day for an event called Queeros. The original name is Eros, but they’re going to have a queer edition called Queeros. I think it’s Almiere or Alkmar. Strong strong feminist undertones. That’s a lot of the messaging that they get across, which is something we, we deliberately avoid that boundary for ourselves. We really work to have an open gaze. That’s how I would describe our approach to everything, being open, challenging our own biases, challenging ourselves, challenging each other. There are a lot of fights, fights with love, but very much calling each other out on assumptions, biases. It’s incredible.
Nanette Ashby
Absolutely. So festivals aren’t just watching porn, as you mentioned, but there are also art events, there are parties. Could you just tell a bit more about all the possible additions to watching porn at a festival?
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, so I guess that Louise, one of my co-organizers says: cinemas are happening. It’s a space where you get to, you don’t just consume something, you watch something, you discuss it with the person next to you. You take that thought and you go watch a performance. So we have performances, workshops. We have an industry and community day. We have an opening party, we have a closing party. Almost the entire festival is a result of the open call. So we don’t do any intentional curating, we don’t do any intentional, we really try not to design it, we try to let it develop organically. We have performance submissions. Across the festival each year we have about 300 submissions and we go through everything.
Nanette Ashby
Wow.
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, yeah, it’s incredible. Um, like this year we’re gonna have, I can’t even remember the name but it’s essentially a choir that uses sounds of masturbating. They’re gonna do a workshop and then they’re gonna do a performance and I’m like what world is this? How wonderful!
Nanette Ashby
That is amazing!
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, people come up with these incredible ideas and they have the skills in delivering and developing it. And you get like quite a professional output. You read it and you’re like, I don’t have anywhere in my brain to place this. I can’t compare it to anything else. I can’t.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
So it just, it broadens your gaze and your expectations and it just, it opens everything up for you. The industry and community day is beautiful. It’s very much for like, sex workers and platforms and people curious about this world but not quite sure how to get involved. You’ll have a sound engineer who really wants to work on sound for homemade pornos. You’ll have everyone. There’s something for everyone. And just the, I’d say the humanizing nature of it is what’s really incredible for me. Like, film is the ultimate empathy tool.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Like you you can think of, if you’ve got no idea of sex work, you’ve got it in your brain like, oh, it’s just about women being trafficked. It’s very anti-woman. What about the children? And you can think of the system, but you never think of the person. And then you start seeing films about sex workers and all of that has to come down. And you start thinking of the person. I mean, this is true of film across every genre, every story.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
But it just applies humanity and consideration to every kind of situation. And then you can go and have a workshop, you can go ahead and have a performance. It doesn’t need to stop at the film.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
You can start to express. I think what a lot of people, they expect the screenings to be like super hot and you can have a stranger masturbating next to you and like, you don’t quite know what’s going to happen. But then you go and you watch your films and you’re like, oh I’m not aroused, but I’m thinking. I think you’re aroused in 5% of the films. They’re intense, right? They’re they’re they’re super intense. It’s very different to like um personal pornographic consumption, right? Where you’re searching for something you want to see, where you want to fulfill a fantasy. Here, you’ve got no idea what you’re going to see. You have an idea, you have a little bit of context, but you’re coming fresh. You’ve got to drop your guard. You’ve got to check in with yourself. Are you ready for what you want to see? So yeah, it’s quite, it’s quite something.
Nanette Ashby
Yeah, usually how it works, there are short films that are grouped under very broad umbrella terms, For example, BDSM shorts. But the one that I really loved from last year from your film festival was the Crip short films on disability representation. And personally, that’s what I really am interested in, in the big field. And I was so happy and surprised to see a whole section dedicated to that because it’s very hard to find movies featuring disability at all.
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah.
Nanette Ashby
So that was very nice. And the discussion afterwards was also very interesting because there were disabled people in the room to represent themselves and speak for themselves, which is very rare. So really amazing.
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, that was something we worked with. His name is Karim. He works for Wheels of Inclusion. It’s his own company. He’s a wheelchair user and we had a session with him about how to make the festival as accessible as we can.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Accessibility is very expensive, right? To make sure. We had to realize the limitations of what we could make more accessible. Like if we had people who were hard of hearing or hard of seeing. We’re not in a position to do anything about that at the moment, but it is something we’re working towards. We make sure we have two or three wheelchair accessible venues. And then Hyeisoos, Hyeisoos hosted the Cripping Pleasure Block. She’s hosting it again this year with fresh films. We also have an incredible sponsor so called Datability. It’s an app for disabled people and people who are chronically ill, specifically for them. Because dating and one-night stands – it’s really difficult when you’re, when you’re impaired in some way. And there’s either like fetishization or desexualization completely. That’s what tends to happen.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
But desire such a human and universal trait. um It’s, yeah. So it’s something were we’re really proud of and that we’re really trying to get more representation for. Also, so we have the disability block, but we make sure those stories are echoed across the rest of the festival. Someone’s not just disabled, they’re disabled and they’re kinky or they’re disabled and they are having sex with their friends. Someone’s always more than disabled. Someone’s always more than BDSM, more than a sex worker. The intersectionality of people’s stories is really important for us to represent too.
Nanette Ashby
So what can you already reveal what other blocks you have decided on for the coming?
Jessie van der Berg
Oh, I can, I can. Every year we do a cheeky sneak peek, which represents the themes across the festival. We’ll have a cruising block, Cruising City, which pays homage to cruising. It’s so hot. Oh my gosh. It’s just, it’s, it’s ridiculous. Then a really nice block is called Phantom Love which pays homage to and recognizes the difficulty of absence whether it’s from death or a lost lover or a breakup and can you still feel horny? Can you still imagine somebody naked after they’ve died? And it really, it speaks about distance and absence which is really quite beautiful and confronting. We have a block called Holy Shit, which you can imagine, it speaks for itself. We’re looking at fecal play and scat and something that’s generally quite taboo.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
That’s my limit. I’m like, what? No. Okay, fine, I don’t have an open gaze. Never mind. I thought I was open-minded. I’m not.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
So it’s really good to get challenged. A challenge like this. So we’ll have that. And we will also have somebody come in and speak about it. I think it’s a professor. Let me see what else we have here. We have collectives and individual curators. So, there are seven of us that represent very different lived experiences, right? From being migrants to sex workers to trans. There’s a lot that we represent, but we do realize there are gaps in what we can represent. So we try to fill that by getting in guest curators. So we’ve got Argentinian guest curators. We’ve got um this South American festival called Excéntrico.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
I think Chile. i think’s Chilean. They’ll curate something. And then Christina Castellia, she’s a CAM girl based in Amsterdam. She’s curated a block. She’s connected with CAMers, who’ve created films for this to showcase the counting experience. So we look at everything from format to the work to where people come from. We’ll have the No Money, No Honey block, which is a films about sex work and sex workers. We have the politics block, which is also recurring, political commentary. Let me see. Oh, for the first time we’ll have Polder Porn, which is a porn that was exclusively created in the Netherlands.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Quite a few that were inspired by the festival, which is incredible.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
People who met at the parties or industry day and decided to make something. We’ve got Kinkystraat, which is the BDSM block, which is um quite intense. Sometimes people expect like some flogging and shibari, but it’s, it’s intense. And as a festival, we don’t give trigger warnings intentionally because to assume that everyone’s triggered by the same thing, not very much an open gaze, to think that guns are more triggering than dentist work or It’s quite presumptuous. So we take shared responsibility with our audience. We also we have a care team available after the more difficult screenings.
Nanette Ashby
Okay.
Jessie van der Berg
And we invite people to check in with themselves and to give them ideas for what to do should they feel like they’re not managing something. If you’re a bit anxious, maybe sit close to the middle so that you’re ready to leave. Or if you’re not quite sure how this is going to sit with you, know that the care team is over there and you can talk to them afterwards. We’re with friends. We can talk about anything. But yeah, it’s really the shared responsibility. People need to own themselves and their boundaries and they need to manage themselves. And we invite them to check in and support wherever we can.
Nanette Ashby
Okay, that’s a very new approach. I have never heard that before. I love how we just jumped into the conversation already. As you mentioned, there’s also a space where community can come together. From my own experience, it feels like a safe space to connect with like-minded people or explore topics that are a bit out of someone’s comfort zone, but in a safe space. And I was wondering why creating these spaces, as we heard across Europe, there are multiple, why is that so important? And why are you passionate about that specifically?
Jessie van der Berg
It is a big question, but I feel like personally, like that’s my purpose is to create safe spaces. That’s what I try to do with my work, with my events, with my writing, with marketing and everything from making people feel seen, making digital spaces feel safe or whatever. I think people become a lot less reactive and in safe spaces. Like if you go to a random party, you don’t know who’s going to be there, don’t know what the vibe’s going to be, your walls are going to be up. And if someone bumps into you, you’re going to take it very seriously. It’s going to feel like I was intentional. But if you go to like a kinky queer party and you know that the intention, everyone’s there with good intentions, open intentions, the intention of making it safe and you get bumped into, that person’s going to be really happy and apologize and you’ll end up talking. So just setting the intention of safety and allowing people to feel safe also opens them up. And then you can start having real dialogue, not from a place of reaction. So a lot of um people who come to our festival, they’re not, they’re not queer. They don’t consume this kind of pornography. They’re not really interested in political commentary or challenging themselves, but they’re brought in because they see porn. They think it might be titty, titty, bang, bang, porn. But then they come in and they start seeing these incredible films and their guard is lowered and they let in these ideas and they start challenging and thinking about things they’ve never challenged before. And because the space is so safe, they feel safe enough to question it, to talk about it, to percolate. So you can only grow in a safe space as people, as communities. And it doesn’t mean that the space doesn’t challenge you.
Nanette Ashby
Yeah.
Jessie van der Berg
It doesn’t mean the space doesn’t question you, that it doesn’t make you work. At PFFA you can’t just come and consume it. You have to process it. You have to talk to somebody about it. So I think that’s safety. I think that’s the only way we grow.
Nanette Ashby
You mentioned the industry days. That’s what I was very excited about as well, because I’m assuming that it’s also quite difficult to connect and network within this field via social media or other ways. So meeting in person and having a dedicated event where you know, okay, you’re in a room with like-minded people and people who have likely worked in the field or want to start working in the field, is really valuable.
Jessie van der Berg
Like-minded isn’t necessarily the right word. It’s maybe open-minded or willingness because it’s specifically not like-minded. Specifically, you want that challenge. You want a different perspective. You want um something you’ve never considered before. So yeah, we have the industry day and we have three different panels there where we have experts in some or other area. So this year we’ll be speaking a lot about what happens when boundaries are violated and how to recover from that in digital spaces at sex parties across different formats. We’ll be speaking about sex work and migration. We’ll be speaking about the repressive wave in Europe. Like a lot of things are being banned. A lot of porn channels are being banned. So we all speak to different people. And then we host a speed date where everybody can just meet. And I think that’s the big call. Everyone comes through the festival, It happens over four days and it culminates on Saturday night in a party. So you’ve been seeing these people, you’ve maybe met them cross paths and the party is so divine. It’s designed, it’s so gentle, but so sexy. The music’s good. It’s not just like hardcore sex party techno, right? It’s sexy, it’s sensual, groovy. So it’s very much designed, connective. The whole experience really meant to be interactive and connective and safe so that you do feel open and you do feel comfortable approaching someone.
Nanette Ashby
That’s definitely the feeling I got when coming last year. So I would say, if you want, we could dive into the history of it, because the Amsterdam Porn Film Festival has been around for a couple years now. And I was wondering, what’s the origin story? How did it start?
Jessie van der Berg
So it started about three years ago. We had our first edition in 2024. And the main organizers were connected at Filmhuis Cavia. The main spot of PFFA. So they’re all really interested in film and sex positivity. They come from different places in the world, Korea, Colombia. They had visited other festivals in Europe and they were like, why does Amsterdam not have a porn festival, right?
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
There’s no sex positive, nuanced community event of this scale or of this idea. And so they did something about it. There was a Holy Fuck Film Festival in 2016 where they tried to do it. And then it was kind of a development from that. The first festival was really put together with duct tape and faith. I don’t think anyone had organized a film festival before. I don’t think, I mean, everyone’s really good at what they do and at figuring things out and working really hard. We’re also so personally committed to what this festival does. And I joined helping them with social media in the beginning. And then they just made it happen, finding venues, turning venues into cinemas, inviting people. Is this going to sell? Is anybody interested in this? We’ve hosted these 40 events over like four days. Nobody had any idea how it was going to turn out. And you also apply for the logistics of a festival. Oh, shucks, we need to sell tickets. Do we need a ticketing platform? We need posters. There’s so much. And you’re dealing with at that point, it was 140 films.
Nanette Ashby
Wow.
Jessie van der Berg
So you also have to do right by the filmmakers. You have to do right by everybody. So a lot of figuring it out. And a second festival was probably double the size, a second edition. We attracted about 3000 people over that time.
Nanette Ashby
Wow.
Jessie van der Berg
And we started working with sponsors and because it’s an expensive thing to pull off. You have to pay for the venues, you have to pay for catering, you have to do so much and we charge such little amount for the ticket prices.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
A lot of it is very operational. There are a lot of spreadsheets.
Nanette Ashby
Very sexy.
Jessie van der Berg
It’s hard, spread the sheets, I call it spread the sheets. But the reception has been incredible. Like in our second edition, we had someone who volunteered. She was um, had previously been very religious. She was 40 years old. She was a virgin. She had no idea about anything in this world. And she challenged herself and she signed herself up to all the PFFA events. She volunteered. She put herself through the most intense screenings. And since then, her whole demeanor has changed. Everything about it, she’s really stepped into herself and she shares these beautiful long stories about her sexual experiences and just… I mean, that’s just one story and that’s been incredible. And we have um a woman from Japan who came to the BDSM screening and all the directors who were there were women. So you would never have that in Japan, having all female directors of porn and BDSM. That’s insane. So all these people who have their frameworks because of where they come from or because of how they’ve been brought up or their relationship with their sexuality. They come here and it’s so open and so safe. And yeah, we keep getting these kinds of responses and these kinds of stories as as it goes on. And the festival is starting to get a name for itself.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
People are really finding themselves at home in the festival, connecting beyond the festival. So yeah, we’re busy with our third edition. It’s from the 26th of Feb to the 1st of March. We’ll have have industry day again, opening party, closing party. We haven’t grown too much this year. We’re, we’re learning what our limits are. It’s taken a while.
Nanette Ashby
Well, that’s always good to know.
Jessie van der Berg
We’ve got volunteers who help us with, i mean without the volunteers, the festival wouldn’t be possible.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Volunteers and filmmakers are, I would say they’re the crux of the festival.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
The film festival in Amsterdam is very specific. The stories are very specific here. But we have Louisa who works, goes to Colombia and hosts events there. We have Heisu who goes to Korea and hosts events there. I went to South Africa and hosted an event there. And then you take your consideration for where you are, what the story is there, what you can use from films that make sense. Like my one programmer, he’s Dutch, and his main idea is that the audience needs to be made more uncomfortable. Audiences can’t deal with uncomfortable content anymore. We need to make them uncomfortable. Like you can’t consider them and their sensitivities too much. Whereas as I come from South Africa, very violent. We have high rape statistics. I don’t want to make my audience uncomfortable.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
I want to make my audience feel relieved. I want to make them laugh. I want to make them curious. So we all have different ways to curate based on where we come from and what it is we want people to feel.
Nanette Ashby
Wow, I hadn’t considered that. That’s very interesting. Yeah, my next question would have been how do you curate a festival, but you already mentioned that it really comes down to the submissions you receive each year. Do you have any anything else you want to add to the curation process?
Jessie van der Berg
I mean, every year you reach and you’re like, these submissions are so incredible. We’re never going to get submissions this great again. But it’s so incredible because of how we curate because where you place a film can drastically change the meaning of the film. We watch everything and we note down the themes or what what makes sense, what doesn’t make sense, what we really liked about it. But each of us watch, I think we had 193 submissions this year of just films. So much porn! Like for two weeks afterwards, I’m like a zombie where I’m just like, because it’s almost like violating yourself, right?
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
You don’t know what you’re going to watch. It’s going to be intense and you just have to go, go, go, go, go.
Nanette Ashby
How much time do you have to consume, like to go through all of them?
Jessie van der Berg
I’d say about six weeks.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
And like some of them are two minutes, some of them are 40 minutes. It’s insane. But you go there and you start to see what story you want to tell. But just so you have to let the film speak to you. If you go there with a preconceived idea of what you want to show, you’re not going to do an honest curation. So you start to see the connection between the films. You start to see: What are people trying to say? What are most people trying to say? Or how is this film so different to this film? And what lens can we put on it? Like um we have Transcending the Flesh this year.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Which is about very much like post-human experiences. So robots, aliens, AI, all of that. And we have like an AI film which is quite hard to watch because the AI body parts and it’s difficult to watch. And then we juxtapose that with commentary on AI and it works very good together just because of that. So where you place a film can drastically change how people consume it and how they view it.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
So yeah, we each carry it according to what we see. We discuss it a lot. It’s a lot of work! I very much curate for relief, for some political kind of commentary. If something makes me laugh, I’m very likely to program it. Also, if something challenges me, if I really don’t want to program something, I’ll probably figure out how to program it.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
The ability for something to sit so like uncomfortably with me, it’s important. Why? What is it triggering in me? What is it that needs to be spoken about? What is it that needs to be shown? Everyone’s got their agenda. My agenda is very much progressing sex worker rights in South Africa.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
What can I bring back to South Africa with me? What can I do to get South Africa’s story on more global stages? Whereas um Louise speaks very much about um colonization and re-indigenizing. So we’ve all got different agendas that we try to get realized at the festival.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
We pay homage first to the filmmakers on what they’re trying to say.
Nanette Ashby
Wow, I’m getting very inspired hearing, hearing you talk about it. As you mentioned, you bring it also back to South Africa and you curated a film festival in South Africa recently. I want to hear more about that.
Jessie van der Berg
Oh, so it wasn’t a film festival, but film was the catalyst for it. So it’s called SONA, which is the Sex of the Nation Address. So in South Africa, we have a political event every year called State of the Nation Address, where we get updates on the budgets and everything. The whole country kind of like mocks it, laughs about it. You can’t take it seriously. Everyone interrupts it. Everyone dresses up way too much. It’s a little bit ridiculous. And poking political fun at your political leaders in South Africa, it’s like it’s a rite of passage. It’s what you do.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
So, Sex the Nation Address, SONA, it worked really nicely to get people interested interested in what was happening because it was an idea they could already wrap their head around. Also, South Africa is quite sexually conservative in terms of our sex work laws are from the 1950s, pre-apartheid, like in the middle of apartheid. So we had an entire new constitution developed, but sex work was left out. Really left in archaic times. And it’s because we don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about sex. We don’t talk about sex work. We have some of the highest rape statistics in the world.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
There are campaigns, there are things but they are very surface. South Africa is very interesting. There’s so much to consider. It’s so many different cultures, so many different languages, so many different realities, so many people living below the breadline. I’m really trying to kickstart something there. I’m trying to make a sex worker positive and safe space. Sex work is huge in South Africa, but it’s illegal. Continues to be heavily criminalized. Many cases of sex workers being raped, being raped by cops. It’s insane.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Also because um employment rates are really low in South Africa. You have a lot of poor people, who have a lot, there’s a lot. And sex work, I mean, everywhere historically really brings back means of earning money to women, to migrants, to queer folks, to many people who don’t have other ways of earning money. I’d really like there to be more progress in South Africa. I’d really like us to start talking about it. So I hosted this event and the films got donated by 10 different filmmakers.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
And we also showed some South African films, two documentaries: Woman Working which is documentary on South African’s sex work. And Slut Club, which is a film about a strip club in Cape Town. It’s actually also been selected for PFFA this year. Zoe Black is a director and creator and she created this film and submitted it. So I’m really happy for that. But yeah, hosting this event, we showed some films and I think something like watching porn in public, I would say it’s probably the first time it’s been done in South Africa. Like I don’t think people have any idea what to expect.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
We’re really lucky with the venue. It’s a place called Democracy Bar. Really happy to host us, really happy for like the weirdness of it. And we had incredible sponsors helping us make this happen. I say us, I don’t know, I became like a one-man agency at that point.
Nanette Ashby
Wow.
Jessie van der Berg
The organizing, yeah, with like some solid key people but organizing an event in six weeks is…
Nanette Ashby
Insane.
Jessie van der Berg
It’s crazy. But everyone in the team is like that, like a little bit of audacity and delusion, and we just make things happen.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
I was so worried about this event because I’m a middle class, white girl. Who’s going to come to this event? Is it just going to be more white people talking about sexuality? Is it going to be like, the racial makeup in South Africa is very different.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
But because of who I had there, I had a lot of black queer women on my panels or a lot of people who were part of it took up different spots in society than I do.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
And so had a much broader audience interested in it. Which made me really really happy. We had people come through. We had performances. We also, we had discussions about sexuality about culture and sexuality about…
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
We just spoke about it! We spoke openly about it. And it was safe. And it was everything PFFA stands for, but within a South African context. I think I might have been gone for too long to really have as much contextual understanding as I would need. So I think someone in South Africa would need to carry on doing the work with support from me and from PFFA.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
That’s my hope, that we can do it in every province and that we can invite some government officials. And like I said about film, helping with empathy, I really want the people who can make the changes, who can drive decision making to come in and watch it and feel that safety, feel that warmth, feel that openness.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
That’s kind of what I want to happen.
Nanette Ashby
Wow! I’m also excited that you mentioned that the documentaries will be in Amsterdam. Especially, I was interested in the Women Working documentary. So I’m very happy that the films also migrate to different locations. You definitely have experience in organizing these festivals. For people who are in locations where these festivals haven’t reached yet, or they want to make their own, do you have some tips or advice?
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, I mean, my first thing would just be, do it. Just do it! If you’re curious about it, if you have any ideas around it. Start something small. Start a watch party. There’s a site called pinklabel.tv where you can access a lot of these films. But what I really recommend is wherever you are, find the filmmakers where you are. I’m pretty sure every country in the world has some underground film scene, queer scene. I mean, it also depends on the legalities and whatnot. I mean, I’m not going to suggest that people in Saudi Arabia start a film festival based on porn. That’s not what I’m suggesting. But there are communities everywhere that are doing intense work, community, cultural driven work. Find those communities! Start as small or as big as you possibly can. Start a watch party or connect with another filmmaker. Any festival organizer will have 30 minutes with you to discuss logistics.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Nine out of ten filmmakers I contacted for the event in SONA donated their screen so we didn’t have to pay screening fees. Couldn’t afford that with South African currency. A lot of people making these films, they are political, they understand low funds. Though, if you can afford to, really do pay screening fees, out of respect for them as filmmakers and out of respect for their, for their stories. But the people in this world, they’re they’re giving and they’re driven to help drive narratives to open up to change perspectives.
Nanette Ashby
Yeah.
Jessie van der Berg
So just reach out, reach out, connect. Come to industry day. Slide into people’s DMs. Figure out what you stand for. Like, so I guess just start as big as you possibly can.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Find your local cinemas. Find the people doing the work already. It doesn’t have to be film. You can start with discussion. You can start with books. You can start with audio. Audio porn is taking off in a huge way right now. So I guess it really depends on what your intention is, why you would want to start it, and then figure out the logistics around that.
Nanette Ashby
That’s great advice. I’m also in my head, I’m always get very inspired for new projects, so I need to be careful. But ah… I hope the listeners are taking notes. I also want to ask, what were some challenges that you ran into that you maybe didn’t expect from country to country? And things to keep in mind?
Jessie van der Berg
Let me think. I mean, people in Amsterdam are, I mean based on my experience, are quite a lot, they’re a lot more open and receptive. And like you can have a sex party here. Because I don’t think I can have a sex party in South Africa. I don’t even know what the legalities are. But again, the rape rates, sexual assault, violence. I wouldn’t even know how to do that safely. So I would say safety. And in South Africa, I’m worried about ending the event too late for people to travel home late. Thinking, how do I make it more accessible? Is my venue accessible enough?
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Can people really afford this? So the accessibility and access to it. Even, I wanted to host it at a different event at a different venue, but it was too expensive. I mean, sponsorship is really great, but we’re so careful and intentional with our sponsors.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Our sponsors can’t affect curation of the events at all. A lot of events end up having awards or they have the blah, blah lounge or you can maybe feel the brand a little bit too much and you don’t quite know how involved they were in the curation. So we’re so careful with sponsors they really have to have similar values. They really have to get it and they have to be nice people. They have to be people we want to work with. We’re doing this in a very big voluntary capacity.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
We’re working late nights. We’re working weekends and then to have to work with someone who’s not a nice person like we wouldn’t do that. So I’d like to increase sponsorship in South Africa. That would be incredible! Maybe even get funds. I don’t, I don’t even know how like institutional funding works there. Whereas in Amsterdam like funding is very accessible. I mean our team works really really hard to secure funding.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
So I would say I guess the biggest difference is financial support.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm. That was actually one of my next questions. Regarding money, how do you sustain festivals like this?
Jessie van der Berg
If I’m very honest, we work way too hard on this. It’s way too big for seven people.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
And then we charge very low ticket prices. So there is a mismatch and we’re usually the ones who end up paying for it energetically or whatever. But we work with a very strict budget.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
We get support from funds. Previously, we’ve been funded by AFK. And this year, we’re looking at Cultuur Fonds and Fontaine and Twilet. But every funding application is like, it’s a job. I don’t know if you’ve ever applied to a fund? It’s lot of work!
Nanette Ashby
Yeah, I have, yeah.
Jessie van der Berg
And every fund is different. And you think you’ve got this template that you can use. But no, every fund is very, very different.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
But the funds have been really incredible, very interested in what we’re doing. They get it, which is amazing. And then, like I said, we started working with sponsors.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
So um one of our main sponsors is Friends of Hollow. They’re a Dutch-based company. They’re like OnlyFans, but better, better technologically. They really, really care about creators and creative safety. And they’re just they’re a dream. If you come to PFFA this year, you’ll probably meet them. They’re wonderful people.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Sponsors help a lot. Then the parties help a lot. Ticket prices and sponsors is how we manage the funding. And have a budget, have a budget and stick to it. There’s some things we can’t pay for that we’d really, really, really like to.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
But we have to be pretty hardcore when it comes to that.
Nanette Ashby
Yeah, yeah. Something I was just thinking regarding grant applications and the fact that you’re applying for a porn film festival specifically, I’m actually really happy to hear that that is not as big as a taboo or problem as I assumed. So that’s great news. But how do you deal with the marketing side of a festival like this? Is it a lot about word of mouth? Is it in the modern age social media, but there’s a lot of censorship regarding sex and pornography? How do you go about spreading the word?
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, I mean, so something like what we’re doing right now is incredible. So happy when you reached out to me. It’s just the chance to speak about it openly on a platform. On a platform that you’ve worked out. But a lot of it is Instagram, which is censored like: Oh my gosh! Our name is Porn Film Festival Amsterdam on there, but it was set up before I joined. And I don’t know how that, how we got that right.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Can’t show any nudity or intentions of sex. So we get these beautiful stalls from filmmakers. I’m like, I can’t choose your stall. And it feels so heartbreaking because they want to represent their film in a certain way. But in our program and on the website, we can show whatever we need to. So Instagram is just being, it’s being very savvy.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Also, I’m in the world of social media. I’m in the world of porn and sex. So it’s pretty much like a second language to me. We don’t use hashtags and we don’t use paid media. We don’t risk it landing up in front of someone who doesn’t want to see it.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
You can find it, but you won’t accidentally stumble upon it. So a lot of people share it. We have a lot of filmmakers, we tag them in all of our stuff and they reach it. So we rely a lot on the audiences of different groups. And then, yeah, word of mouth is a thing. We have stickers, flyers, posters. So we’re getting like a name for ourselves a little bit, which is great. And then we’re on Amsterdam Alternative and then that has its own publication.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Like we’re working with the other side for our closing party, they have their own website. So really it’s mixed audiences and just making a good event, making something people want to attend, want to talk about. What’s been tough historically, the first two editions, when you have a screening and it hasn’t sold out. But people like buying tickets really last minute, which is a little bit difficult for us. I know a lot of events are struggling with that. You can’t plan with that. Sometimes you can cancel a venue if you have enough time.
Nanette Ashby
Yeah.
Jessie van der Berg
Luckily, we’ve got very good relationships with our venues. But yeah, it’s a lot of trust, faith in everything. Yeah.
Nanette Ashby
Makes sense. I also was thinking about the fact that when I was in Berlin, I saw the organizers from Vienna and Warsaw and Amsterdam was also represented. And there seems to be also an international network and international collaboration as well between the film festivals. How was the reception when Amsterdam started? Because I remember, I think in 2020 I was already looking for a Porn Festival in Amsterdam and it didn’t exist yet. So I’m very happy for your work. How’s the international connection and support?
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, I mean, I think Amsterdam’s tried to start something a few times or they’ve had um individual moments like there’s the Schmutz cinema. I think Jennifer Lyon-Bald did something at some point. Amsterdam is so easy to host events. like there’s something always happening. People always come.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
The reception’s been really, really good. Every one of us connects with people very differently. Like one of our organizers, Erik, he goes to Berlin. He pretty much stays awake for four days, attends as much as he can, talks to as many people as he can, and just lives on Red Bull. But that works really, really well for the festival. Also, the festival is, I guess, a culmination of our seven personalities.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
So everything from being connective and open and really trying to make it happen. So individually, a lot of us go to different film festivals and do what we can to get the festival recognized, to connect. I think like last year we were guest curators at the Athens Film Festival.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Something like that is incredible. And like this year we’re having the Chilean Film Festival, last year we had, I think it was the Warsaw. So you often have guest festivals at your festival to kind of see what’s happening in the other countries.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
Also sometimes get accreditation if you’re a festival organizer. So everyone understands the challenges of being a festival organizer and really tries to support one another in that. The reception has been good. Also, like anyone who speaks about us or say they heard from us says really good things. So whoever speaks about us is saying really nice things. Thanks for just like grateful to people for being nice.
Nanette Ashby
That’s great to hear! What is your favorite memory of the last two Amsterdam festivals or festivals in general? Can you share some with us?
Jessie van der Berg
In the second edition, well, no, in the first edition, we had no entries from South Africa. Oh, no, from Africa at all.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
And I was like, there’s no representation. I’ve never seen films from Africa. So the next year, last year, I asked my friend Tash Casey, you’ve got to make some porn for me. She doesn’t make porn at all. She’s a filmmaker and she’s a creator and she’s a doer of things.
Jessie van der Berg
Like you give her anything to do and she’ll figure it out. And she made this incredible film called Shadow Wolf and she came to the festival. And then also people who come to the festival, they roll up their sleeves and they get things done. Oh, shit, we need an HDMI cable here. Like everyone who’s involved with the festival understands that this is a duct tape and faith festival.
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
And so I think, like Tash got like really involved with the team. Also, a lot of my friends help make the festival happen. Like, they get random, like, oh, I need you to help me with social posts. Oh, I need you to help me develop the website. Like, my friends, that was not in the porny world, but we all just, we rely on our community individually to help, like, catch us.
Nanette Ashby
Yeah
Jessie van der Berg
Same thing with sponsors and people we talk to, like, be a nice, helpful person. Maybe it might slow us down in a business way. We might not earn as much money as we need to, or we might not grow as much as we need to, but it’s way more important for us to enjoy the work that we’re doing, to connect with the people that we’re doing the work with. So just like all these beautiful connections. Oh and we have the most incredible, like when people visit, like we have hot people visit and then you’re watching someone hot on the screen, and you’re like, my gosh!
Nanette Ashby
Mm-hmm.
Jessie van der Berg
And you know what? They’re all so nice. And just like, they’re so warm. They’re so open. Like, I don’t think I’ve met a single horrible person or someone who I’ve not wanted to engage with. It’s just like a hug. It’s like a four-day hug. And you’re losing your mind because everything’s all over the place.
Jessie van der Berg
But it’s, I don’t even know how to explain it. You’ll see, now that we’ve met and we’re going to meet at this festival, you’ll have a lot more context. it’s It’s going to be good when you come to this edition.
Nanette Ashby
But for those who are in Amsterdam and are able to come, can you just repeat when are the dates? When’s the festival?
Jessie van der Berg
Perfect. So it’s from the 26th of February to the 1st of March. It’s Thursday to Sunday. Yeah. And just follow us on Instagram. It’s the best way to keep up to date with it.
Nanette Ashby
Exactly! I was going to ask, how can we support you? How can we engage with you? And also, before I forget, the artwork was amazing. Like every year I’m surprised of like the. the artwork is so perfect and ingenuitive. I love it!
Jessie van der Berg
That’s hand painted. It was hand painted by i don’t have if told you. somebody in Korea. I’ll send you a photo of the full piece.
Nanette Ashby
Yes, please.
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, we’re very, yeah, it’s such a dream. So dreamy.
Nanette Ashby
Do you still need volunteers? Is there any way people can support short notice? Or is it coming, showing up, buying tickets?
Jessie van der Berg
Yeah, just come through, talk to us, connect with people. Our volunteer roster is full and that’s all sorted out. But yeah, just come through, be there. Everyone is welcome! So like, this belongs to everyone. This belongs to all of us. we’d really like people to come enjoy some of it.
Nanette Ashby
Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time! It’s a pleasure to talk to you and meet you. And all the links will be left in the show notes so people can look up the Instagram, the website, etc. and get their early bird tickets. And thank you so much!
Jessie van der Berg
Perfect. Thank you very much, Nanette!
Nanette Ashby
You can find more information and links to everything we talked about in this episode in the show notes over at raffia-magazine.com, and please let us know what you think over on Instagram @raffia_magazine. If you like this podcast, why don’t you leave us a lovely review on Spotify?
Thanks so much for listening and all your support for the podcast. I’ll catch you in the next episode! Bye!
Raffia 