‘Feminist' porn film opens in SwedenAgence France-Presse
First Posted 09:29:00 09/04/2009
STOCKHOLM – A porn movie shot by a feminist documentary maker and funded by taxpayers was set for its premiere in the Swedish capital of Stockholm on Thursday night.
Dirty Diaries, a collection of 12 short pornographic films, shot by director Mia Engberg received 500,000 Sweden kronor (69,000 dollars, 48,000 euros) in public funds from the Swedish Film Institute.
"Porn has always been made by men for men," Engberg told 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."
Beatrice Fredriksson, a youth member of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's conservative Moderate Party and the author of the Anti-Feminist Initiative blog, slammed the decision to use taxpayers money to fund the films.
"I do not think that the government should be funding this kind of thing, just because it’s 'feminist' it gets money," she said.
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 AFP.
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.
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