DirtyDiaries_notes.txt
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/09/14/tax-funded-swedish-adult-movie-causes-furore/
Categorized | Culture, MBL, Politics, Society, Sweden
Tax-funded Swedish adult movie causes furore
Posted on14 September 2009. Tags: controversy, film, pornography, Sweden
Dirty Diaries, a montage of 12 pornographic films by Swedish feminist documentary maker Mia Engberg, was released last week, sparking considerable public debate.
The Swedish Film Institute contributed EUR 49,000 to the controversial project, which has outraged some sectors of society, notably author of the Anti-Feminist Initiative blog and member of the Swedish Moderate Party Youth Organisation, Beatrice Fredriksson.
Dirty Dairies instead focuses on the more natural side of female sexuality, displaying sex through a female perspective. Engberg has also claimed that female sexuality is more multi-faceted than that of men. Her ambition is to make pornography more appealing to women. Previously, Engberg had directed a lesbian pornographic film containing images of female facial expressions during orgasm.
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http://www.thelocal.se/21814/20090901/
Published: 1 Sep 09 15:54 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/21814/20090901/
'Feminist porn' movie Dirty Diaries, which received 500,000 kronor ($69,000) in public funding, is to premiere this Thursday in Stockholm.
The collection of 12 short pornographic films, all shot on mobile phones, is the brainchild of feminist documentary filmmaker, Mia Engberg.
"Porn has always been made by men for men," Engberg told news agency AFP, explaining her reasoning for shooting the Dirty Diaries.
"Above all, it's about showing sexuality through a female's perspective. It's not made to please a male audience and it's not made to make money," she added.
Engberg said what makes Dirty Diaries feminist is that it displays women's sexuality in a natural way and shuns what she perceives as mainstream porn's sexist tendency to treat women as objects.
"I think this is the future. The most popular genre now is homemade porn made by ordinary people," she said.
Clips from the films appear on Engberg's website, www.dirtydiaries.se, carrying titles such as "Flasher Girl On Tour" and "On Your Back Woman."
All of the filmmakers are either female or identify as female (one of the filmmakers was born male).
The fact that the project received half a million kronor support from the Swedish Film Institute has attracted criticism from some quarters.
"My main issue with this is that taxpayers' money is being use to fund pornography. The fact that it's feminist porn seems to somehow make it okay but there would have been an outrage had it been regular pornography," Beatrice Fredriksson, co-founder of the Anti-Feminist Initiative blog and a member of the Moderate Party's youth organisation, told The Local.
But Engberg brushed off criticisms that funding X-rated sex movies with taxpayers money was a waste of funds.
"We are producing 70 minutes of high quality film...it's just 500,000 kronor. They couldn't spend the money any better," she told the AFP news agency.
When asked by AFP if she opposed the Swedish film body backing mainstream pornography, Engberg said: "They should not be given any money at all, especially when they are making money out of women's bodies."
In an interview on the Swedish Film Institute website, the group's head Cissi Elwin Frenkel defended providing the money for the film.
"Everyone in the films is over the age of 18, no one is doing anything against their will, everyone shares equally in the money from the films," Frenkel said.
"All of this makes Mia Engberg's project different from regular porn in many ways. This is an ambitious project that in both form and content lives up to the demands we set for the projects we support," she added.
AFP/The Local (news@thelocal.se)
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http://www.thelocal.se/21816/20090901/
Feminist porn 'challenges traditional gender roles'
Published: 1 Sep 09 16:21 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/21816/20090901/
Film maker Mia Engberg explains the genesis of Dirty Diaries, a movie made up of 12 'feminist porn' shorts that has been generating heated debate across Sweden in the lead-up to its premiere this week.
A few years ago I was asked if I wanted to make a short film on a mobile phone. The result was Come Together, a film in which a number of women point the camera at their faces while masturbating.
The film was put onto the internet and provoked a strong reaction. A lot of the reactions were negative, with comments like: "Damn, they're ugly. Could they not at least have put on some make-up." I found the comments interesting. They showed that we're still living with the age-old belief that a woman and her sexuality should please the beholder above all else.
Throughout the history of art, the image of woman has been created by men. The gaze has been a man's gaze and female sexuality has been limited to a few identities that have suited the patriarchal system (and the male artistic ego): whore, wife, mother, muse.
Now, in 2009, it's high time for a change. With this in mind I asked a number of female artists, film makers and activists to each make an erotic film showing new images of women and sexuality, images that are not created with a profit motive or for the benefit of a male audience.
We have been faced with many questions. Is there a female sexuality that can be differentiated from its male counterpart and, if so, what does it look like? Is it possible to be subject and object at the same time? How can we liberate our own sexual imagination from the commercial images we see every day and that seep into our subconscious minds?
In many ways we have had to reinvent ourselves. In order to create a new genre. And to view the world with a new gaze.
So what is feminist porn? There's no easy answer to that question. Dirty Diaries is made up of twelve very different films: soft erotica and hardcore porn, hetero and homo, provocation, penetration and visual poetry... This is just the beginning, and I hope to see the creation of more alternative images that challenge stereotypical gender roles.
This article was originally published in Swedish on the Newsmill opinion and analysis website.
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