Next week the Dutch Film Academy will be offering, for the first time ever, a three-day Erotic Film masterclass workshop for film professionals-in-training.

We’re honored to be asked to create this workshop. It’s extremely unusual for any mainstream film school to offer such training. Our hope is that it will inspire students to explore, without prejudice, the full range of forms and genres in which sexual feeling plays a central role. And although naturally most of the students will probably not go on to focus on erotic or pornographic film in their own careers (much as we wish they would!), we hope that the issues and ideas raised in this workshop will help them address sexual relationships/themes/scenes in their own work in a way which is thoughtful, original, and powerful.

The workshop is open to pre-enrolled first-year Academy students majoring in any discipline: Directing, Producing, Scriptwriting, Camera/Light, Interactive Media and Visual Effects, Production Design, Sound Design, or Editing. One of the three days will be devoted to the students’ own explorations into erotic filmmaking, creating their own short film concept in as much detail as possible.

Workshop: The Possibilities of Erotic Film

• Sexual relationships can be a powerful force in people’s lives. Towards what ends might a modern filmmaker choose to address sexuality through film, and what are the key issues and choices that the filmmaker must make? In this erotic film masterclass, we will explore some of the film genres in which sexuality is central, including explicit video art installation, sexually-themed documentary, mainstream art film with explicit content, and aesthetically challenging pornography. We will discuss the relationship between art and pornography, and discuss reasons to include or avoid explicit imagery. Finally, we will highlight special film issues relevant to shooting sexual film scenes such as consent, actor comfort, and choreography.

If you’re not a film student but interested in these topics, keep an eye open for Jennifer’s popular: “From Fantasy To Film: Design Your Own Erotic Film” workshop, across USA and Europe.