A poster for "Miari Texas" (2025) by Jang Yun-mi / Courtesy of One More Pink
Erotic expression in art and film has long faced censorship and resistance. A new film screening series started in Korea last year aims to challenge the dominant discourse and break down long-standing taboos.
Held under the name The Love, the screening series was born out of a collaboration between Seoul-based artist Jeon Suhyun from the newly formed One More Pink cineclub collective and visiting Amsterdam-based Korean artist, film curator and organizer Hyeisoo Kim from the Porn Film Festival Amsterdam (PFFA). They held two screenings last year at small venues around Seoul. The third in the series, planned for May 9, is organized by One More Pink and will feature two documentaries about the diverse lives of Korean sex workers.
At the end of last year’s second screening, Jeon and Kim introduced their respective projects to the audience. Kim began by describing her philosophy around erotic films' positive role in bringing people together.
“In my case, I see porn as primarily not just about sex but about showing the relationships between people,” Kim told the audience. “Porn that mistakenly emphasizes penetration has conditioned us to think that’s all it is, but it’s actually about suggesting a kind of intimacy that we can all enjoy. It’s a source of pleasure for all genders and body types.”
Jeon described the gradual process of developing a local porn film festival. “People come and realize that it’s not the existing porn that they’re used to. The strategy for any kind of sex liberation is that we can make it by doing it. Holding screenings, collaborating with related groups, conducting research and challenging people’s long-engrained self-hate. It takes time.”
Jeon Suhyun, left, founder of One More Pink, and Porn Film Festival Amsterdam organizer Hyeisoo Kim, right speak with filmmaker YoonGyeol after a screening of the latter's film "G-Rated" at Indiespace GV, Nov. 29, 2025. Courtesy of One More Pink
Jeon and Kim first met in February last year, when Seoul-based film professor and curator Pip Chodorov coordinated the screening of Jeon’s stop-motion short “Camera and Toe” at the second annual PFFA.
After returning from Amsterdam, Jeon took inspiration from PFFA and formed One More Pink, based on “imagining and experimenting with meeting at the intersection of cinema, sexuality and community” that seeks to “show porno beyond consumerism and as a narrative and practice of telling one’s own story.”
For its first project, One More Pink reached out to Indiespace to collaborate on The Love screening. Since it receives public funding, the theater inevitably placed restrictions on transgender-themed erotic works and banned the word “porn,” which led to some One More Pink members losing interest. Not one to give up easily, Jeon sent a proposal to the PFFA.
Source: Korea Times News
