About the Scenariovakschool

The academy is intended for individuals with a great passion for storytelling who are also schooled or trained in filmmaking and/or scriptwriting. In addition to film training and general screenwriting, the students participate in classes and workshops about each of several genres. Modern Erotic Cinema is one such genre class.

Invitation to write about Modern Erotic Cinema

Thanks to founders Ernie Tee, Sytske Kok, Moniek Kramer, and Hans Hogenkamp at the Dutch screenwriter’s academy Scenariovakschool for inviting me to write a piece about why it might be valuable for screenwriters to learn about Modern Erotic Cinema.
 
That is the class I regularly teach there, after having worked with Ernie Tee teaching for him at he the Dutch film academy, Nederlandse Filmacademie.

Jennifer’s article on Modern Erotic Cinema

My article is posted on the Scenariovakschool website.
 
Here it is in English:

Film students of all kinds, from scriptwriters to directors of photography, tell me that it’s rare for film educators to guide them regarding how to handle sexuality on film. Yet many movies, across many genres, feature personal relationships where the characters are indeed either in, or beginning, some kind of sexual/erotic relationship with each other. 

Moreover, for most of us, our knowledge of sexuality is quite limited. We tend to lean on our own personal sexual experience, because that’s all we have. Other than that, most of us usually only have access to 1)  the reported experience of our close friends, which may not even be completely true and 2) representations of sex in porn that we’ve seen, which is a flawed source as well.

By studying the genre of Modern Erotic Cinema, I offer screenwriting students the tools they need to interpret how they want to handle sexuality in a script. On a broad level, why might (or might not)  you want to position a romantic/sexual relationship as a central theme of the film? What is to be gained?

On a deeper level, we discuss the various kinds of sexuality that different characters might express. Breaking down the typical black-and-white distinction of “normal” sex versus  “depraved/kinky” sex, we can see that in film – as well as in real life –  there are as many individual sexualities as there are characters’ personalities. Our audiences deserve more than boring cookie-cutter sex scenes. 

Plus, we talk about: How can we know the character is having “great” sex, when each of our individual frames of reference is so different? What makes a film sex scene scene feel more like porn, and how can you handle that differently if you wish? And how can you identify some important ethical considerations of a sexually-themed script? By discussing these issues, I help students understand that portraying sexuality is not simply a matter of nakedness or arousal, but of character development, power differentials, vulnerabilities, and connection. The question should be not what we show, but why and how.

Jennifer is an award-winning erotic film director and the founder of Blue Artichoke Films in Amsterdam. Her films have appeared from Zomergasten to CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. She’s a university lecturer throughout Europe on the topic of sex scenes in cinema, and is one of the EYE’s erotic film archive advisors. She offers workshops in sex scene design and acts as a professional consultant for film and television scripts and concepts regarding sexuality. Given her interest in portraying and filming sexuality in an ethical way, she also became an intimacy coordinator to personally  support the creative process with enhanced communication and caretaking,

Other Scenariovakschool genre class instructors

I’m pleased to be in good company among the other film professionals teaching at the academy:

• Saar Ponsioen (writers’ room)
• Jan Doense (horror)
• Martin Koolhoven (western)
• Marieke van der Pol (book adaptations)
• Michael Leendertse (scripts based on true stories)
• Tamara Bos (family films)
• Hisko Hulsing (animation)
• Simon Heijmans (audio-drama)
• Dan Hassler Forest (science fiction & superhero movies)
• Bodil Matheeuwsen (scenarioschrijven & AI)
• Marieke Peeters (AI and the arts)
• Judith Boeschoten (camera, decoupage)
• Jordi Beukers (editing)
• Froukje Tan (director, decoupage)
• Aiman Hassani (inclusive storytelling)
• Don Duyns (dialogue)
• Rogier de Blok (building a scene)
• And the professional script coaches: Anne Barnhoorn, Franky Ribbens, Chris W. Mitchell, Sacha Polak, Erik de Bruyn, Chris Westendorp, Roel Reiné, Roos Ouwehand, Fiona van Heemstra, Jolein Laarman, Aliefka Bijlsma, Eva Aben, and Paul de Vrijer.