This year we’re doing BEDDED a little differently! As we approached 2024, and started to think our tenth (!!!) iteration of the BEDDED festival this December, I’d been talking with friend and colleague Nicola Rios, who is the lead programmer for the International Critical Pleasures & Film Exhibition “Excéntrico” in Chile. If I knew the plans that we’d arrive at when we started talking, I think I would have fainted from joy…
The Excéntrico Festival’s “Best of Excéntrico” shorts program at the Berlin Pornfilmfestival has had my heart for the past 5 years, and is regularly, without fail, always my favorite shorts program. I still remember seeing a program of Latin American films my first year at the Berlin Pornfilmfestival in 2017; it was in no small part the tipping point for me between a previous version of myself who felt like porn was one small part of my art making, and my present self, who knew that this was what I wanted to do with my life.
Since 2017 I have been regularly wildly inspired by Latin American pornmakers–by their work’s fierce political messages, brilliant DIY approach, and visionary aesthetics. Whenever someone asks me about the future of porn, I regularly find myself talking about Latin American porn makers including Eri Sarmet, EDIY Porn, Fuck the Fascism, and many more; to me these makers (and many others) strike the perfect balance between form and meaning, aesthetics and urgency, and cut to the heart of what makes porn powerful and essential. When Nico approached me about being a Filmmaker in Focus at Excéntrico this past January, I was deeply honored and excited. I was even more honored when he proposed a deeper partnership between AORTA films and Excéntrico, which I’m thrilled to get to roll out through this year, and beyond it.
In addition to featuring me as a Filmmaker in Focus this past January, Excéntrico has generously offered to provide spanish subtitles for the entirety of AORTA’s shorts and features–I am beyond grateful and excited to get to add that capability on our site this fall, and continue widening the community of people with access to AORTA’s work. In our drive to continually broaden the circle of people watching post-porn and finding value and meaning to it, what could be more essential than making legible and accessible AORTA’s work through offering translation?
In return, I’ve invited Nico to curate both the June and December iterations of BEDDED (BEDDED IX and BEDDED X) this year. BEDDED began as a chance for me to excitedly bring films back from international festivals that felt essential to share with our members. To ask Nico to do the curating that I’ve been moved by year after year for AORTA directly feels like both a return to BEDDED’s core mission, and the inevitable next stage of AORTA’s watch-at-home festival as it nears the shift into double-digits.
You can see his selections for this June now, and you’ll have to wait with baited breath for another three this December. We’ll also share some exciting news soon about a live screening this November in NYC, featuring Nico’s curation and a much larger selection of Latin American filmmakers.
In the meantime, I’m so excited to get to welcome Nico in as our first BEDDED guest curator, and I feel honored to get to share these three incredible films with our members. We hope you enjoy!