This year adults will have their own section at the Transilvania IFF. Carte Blanche Vica Erotica is a section of bold films from the selection of Viva Erotica Festival in Helsinki.
Described as a “splendid cinematographic orgy,” the Viva Erotica Festival gathers documentaries, classic erotic films, and avant-garde pieces. Doris Kuhn and Petteri Kalliomäki, the programmers of Finnish festival, have put together a menu including 35mm and 16mm copies of classics such as The Devil in Miss Jones (1973), which launched the “porno chic” era together with Deep Throat, also directed by Gerard Damiano (recipient of the Lifetime Achievment Award of the Adult Film Association of America in 1989) and Cleo Übelmann’s Manno Destra (1986), an erotic study featuring two lesbians.
Phillip Schuman’s Randy (1970) is a bizarre, strongly stylized film about a woman whose body produces a miraculous substance called “orgasmine,” which causes — what else? — earth-shattering orgasms. “The strangest Finnish film ever made,” Teuvo Tulio’s Sensuela (1972) was scandalous in its day, presenting the relationship between a young woman from Lapland and a soldier. Wet Dreams (1974) is a compilation of films on sex made by Max Fischer, Lasse Braun, or Nicholas Ray, among others, while Candy Store is a mix of shorts from the Finnish fest’s private collection.
