Wet Dreams Festival Recap

The sexual revolution of the late 1960s was closely linked to the artistic and culture avant-garde of those days. The “sexual avant-garde” relied on underground magazines like Suck, published in Amsterdam and largely run by amongst others Germaine Greer and Willem de Ridder, but also on the Wet Dreams Film Festival organized by Suck in 1970 and 1971. In venues across Amsterdam erotic films were screened, some of which were obviously meant to rise above the average porn flick and be something else. But what exactly? On the one hand, artistically ambitious films were screened and awarded by a jury; on the other hand screenings sometimes ended in full-blown orgies, altogether in line with the avant-garde”s ambition to replace “passive” watching by active audience participation.

Wet Dreams Festival Recap presents a selection of films that were shown at the two Wet Dreams festivals. The introduction places them in the context of the swinging sixties. The selected films all belong to the artistically more rewarding category, even though the filmmakers” approaches varied widely. What were the ambitions, successes and contradictions of the Wet Dreams cinema - treading as it did the line between art and porn, voyeurism and participation, exploitation and liberation?

Love Objects(NL, Tom Chomont, 1971, 2”)

It”s Harem Time (o.v.b.)(NL, Willem de Ridder)

Noviciat(FR, Noël Burch, 1969, 20”)

Fuses(VS, Carolee Schneemann, 25”)