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Interview with Aga Szreder and Rafał Żwirek
What is your motivation to make this Post P_rn Art Festival?
Żwirek
The main motivation was, as I remember, to give to the people some kind of opportunity to talk about sex, about sexuality on a different way. Without shame, without this kind of guiltiness around. Also to have some kind of language to name the things which are connected to sexuality, because in my opinion, we did not have so much opportunities like this in Poland. So we were mostly thinking about our audience. And then of course, we were thinking about artists, about filmmakers from all around the world which gave us fucking big inspiration to do the things, to move the things forward. And we just wanted to show them, show their works to our audience, because we believe this kind of artistic strategies, can change lives like
Aga
Like ours.
And how did you start doing this?
Żwirek
It’s a very dramatic story. But when you do a porn film festival, then this festival is a bit like a virus, so you can use all opportunities to make this virus stronger.
On the beginning, we had the amazing opportunity to start, and this is really something untypical and it was some kind of miracle on one hand. Because suddenly one day somebody called us and asked us if we would like to do this festival, because he is the owner of the cinema and he could give us the cinema.
We could give the content and we could create together the festival. So for us, this was something that we did not expect, that we do the festival in Poland. This was a completely new situation because we are underground artists and in our imagination, if we do something, then we do this in underground, in the basement, in the basement of an underground pub for 15 people, some kind of perverts from our bubble.
But we had this opportunity to do it for everybody, and this was the chance, which was super precious in that moment. And we did it. So we decided to cooperate with this guy. And this was the beginning and then was something happened, which is already maybe not super nice, because then there was some kind of mess and our motivation and his motivation seemed to be different.
How was the reaction from side of the society to make a Post Porn Festival in Warsaw?
Żwirek
For them, this was like a miracle from God because they went to the cinema. They were praying, they were, singing these songs from the church. So I think for this part of society, this was really like the signs that God is existing. It never happened in 21st century and It’s like a story from the Bible. This was amazing, because this was, like, wow! This was one of the best political performances which I saw in my life. They really went to the cinema and they really started to pray against, or not even against us. They wanted to support us on one hand. So they were super polite. Who is going to your exhibition and prays for you?
Aga
Is was amazing, these religious fundamentalists. They came on the opening of the first edition and they were praying outside of the cinema for us. What was nice. But actually I think now more people understand what we are doing and what we are trying to tell, but at the beginning no one knew. And so people were coming, because they were curious. They knew that it’s about sexuality and so we could see how huge the need is for this. Because in the Festival, of course, there are movies, but for us, it is very important to work with sexual education. So we are doing panels, workshops, exhibitions, the festival-club with performances, with music. We try to connect people and so keep them together. To create a kind of post-porn utopia, the safe space for all of us where we can speak openly about our sexuality. And this is happening during festivals. It’s amazing. I have this feeling that it’s empowering the people so much.
Żwirek
And I think not so many people, even from the German east or people from Academy, knew or really understood what contemporary post-pornography means. So this was a bit difficult, but we also did not expect that there would be such a big enthusiasm around that everybody would like to come.
Aga
We were scared actually in the beginning.
Żwirek
And if anybody would like to participate. But then when we discovered that at the first edition, for example, we had 6000 viewers, that something happened. The small stone who moves, and other stones started to move and things started to be more visible and more powerful.
Aga
But still: in the main medias, or in people’s minds, it doesn’t exist. It’s still like a kind of bubble story. Till now we had like 12,000 viewers, people in the audience, but still it’s not mainstream.
Żwirek
Yeah, that’s cool.
Aga
Yes, of course. But it’s this scale of this festival, that lets us make it bigger. Because before we were thinking about some small club basement and not to make it so public. And what I want to say is that we are somewhere in the middle, between this deep underground and mainstream.
Did you see a difference from side of the audience or from side of the society between the first and the second edition of the festival?
Aga
Yes, sure. During the first edition, you could see the change because at the beginning everyone was curious, and felt kind of strange maybe, ashamed, somehow shy. And then, at the end of the first edition, people, strangers were talking with each other about their sexuality, their bodies and people started to dress completely differently. And so we could see this change and then the second edition was like…
Żwirek
This was more or less like a continuation. What was different: part of the audience was waiting one year to participate in that next edition. So we started to build some kind of platform for the people and they use it. They started to follow our ideas or our view or our strategy. You can also see how many Polish artists and Polish film makers were participating in the next edition. They really would like to put their stones to the pattern.
What are the parameters of how you curate your program, how you select the films?
Żwirek
I mean, our general idea from the beginning was to break these categories, the ghettos, the boxes. Because part of the festivals are using this, they are not from Poland, so they are from a different culture and maybe in that culture this can be more effective. But we didn’t want, from the beginning, to make categories like lesbian porn, gay porn, queer porn, female porn. We started to focus not around identity, but around some kind of things which are existing in society or in our world. Like, for example, climate catastrophe, things like this or something which is completely subversive and we call it like “subaltern” or something and then we mix the films and we use a different key to put the films together, to our selection in the shorts-programs, and this was very successful, because this is the strategy which has one really good thing for us: It has more power to open people to somebody who’s different.
Aga
Yes, it was important for us that you can see different sexualities than your sexuality. Not to stay in the place. But for us, this moving and fluidity is the most important thing. Be open on different bodies, on different sexuality. And through watching you start to become more tolerant and you can find the kinks, you wouldn’t believe that it could be your kink, before.
Żwirek
And you asked about how we work with the selection: From the beginning we knew that the best idea is to make an open submission of course, because then you have access to somebody who really would like to participate in the festival. But also as curators and filmmakers, we participate in different festivals so we can watch carefully different programs of different festivals and sometimes part of our program belongs to our curatorial choices. We see something and say “Oh wow, this film we would like to show in Poland”, because in Poland people can understand deeper or on a different way, so the selections like this: part is our curatorial choice and part is from open submission. But of course, from submissions it is also our curatorial choice, but a bit different because we can use this three factors which are very useful for us.
God the Son and the Holy Ghost. Usually it is like this. But we changed this logic and this three factors are different in our world: resistance, visibility, pleasure. And sometimes when we watch the films from submissions we just ask ourselves if these three factors exist or not.
If there is some kind of resistance, you see some kind of visibility, which means representation, for example. Or finally, if there is also some kind of pleasure. And if these three factors are together, of course these are typical post-pornographic films and we have to take it. Sometimes we don’t take it because it’s boring, but on the other hand, you know, that I’m partly joking?
Aga
So I wanted to say that we have a huge support from our friends, our family. Sometimes some of our friends is going for some exhibition and sees something that’s fits to our programs. They think it’s beautiful and people send us some proposals. And also every year we are inviting members of our international family to curate a shorts program. We work together.
Żwirek
To be honest we do it very short, because two years nothing, two years is just to recognize the field, to recognize the border and to spread the news, the message, the cultural message. And spread the virus. So we are very thankful. We can’t even name the people who supported us with our curatorial work, this are the curators, the filmmakers, artists, friends, lovers. Everybody sent us some kind of inspiration, some films or some exhibition stuff, because they would like to support us or maybe they would like to
Aga
Take part
Żwirek
be part of it
Aga
because it’s important.