URBAN SMUT is the latest studio to street on PinkLabel.TV. While the studio is new, you may recognize the names of the five young filmmakers behind the new project. The Berlin-based group of artists teamed up with a mission to put their sexual daydreams on film, inspired by their surroundings. The result? An adventurous approach to porn, with explicit scenes located in various urban landscapes such as rooftops, warehouses and underground bunkers. From rough to playful, from straight to queer, these five short films show us that “Sex is on the streets!”

Learn more in our exclusive interview with photographer and filmmaker Jo Pollux, one of the five team members from Urban Smut.

Sex is on the streets!

What’s the origin story of URBAN SMUT? How did the project come about?

We are five erotic filmmakers who found each other a couple of years ago, somewhere in Berlin’s magical porn microcosm: Katy Bit, Finn Peaks, Theo Meow, Candy Flip, and me. We quickly became friends and started working on visualizing our fantasies. Dirty minds think alike!

We already worked together on various other erotic film sets. But we were craving more exchange. So we sat down together and discussed what we actually wanted to see in porn. We watched shitloads of existing porn movies – only for professional purposes, of course. Finally, we decided to do one big project together – an anthology of five erotic short films. We chose “urban landscapes” as a topic since it spoke to all of us. We wanted to connect our resources and share a piece of our world. Each one of us directed one of the five episodes, while the other team members were helping out on set.

The series is presented as vignettes, portraying sexual encounters on city rooftops, industrial warehouses, and underground bunkers. How are these urban physical spaces symbolic to the sexual portrayals they provide a backdrop or a container for? 

Most of the spaces we chose are connected to some fetish or passion of ourselves. For example, Finn is a climber by heart, constantly looking for the next fucking “up, up, up!”. One day, Finn, Theo and I went for a walk. We started to climb on a scaffold near our shared flat. We ended up on a rooftop with a stunning view over Berlin! We all fell in love with it, and all knew we needed to shoot porn there. The result was Finn’s episode of the movie, “Blue Hour”.

I, on the other hand, love to stroll around through the world, trying to collect and connect all the things and places that inspire me – and turn them into porn. I am a cave addict and have a fascination for the underground spaces all around Berlin. So it was clear to me that I wanted to shoot my own episode, “Passage”, in a dirty old basement.

Has your porn making been impacted by COVID?

I think it’s very hard not to be impacted by the pandemic. We all have been locked down in our flats for almost a year now. During the first wave of COVID, we were still full of energy. So we created a solidarity porn to raise funds for sex workers in need. Within a few days, we shot and edited a short movie portraying funny ways to have sex in times of corona while staying safe. Everyone who donated to a sex work emergency fund received a link to our movie.

After some weeks, we realized that the lockdown won’t be just a short exceptional state, but the new standard for the next months. It became incredibly hard to work for us. For sex workers, it was even forbidden. We postponed all of our new project ideas due to safety concerns.

We use the time to reflect on our future steps in the porn world. It’s a tough industry: Selling porn is quite difficult, since porn counts as a “high risk business”. Also, in Germany the youth protection laws are very strict, which makes it even more complicated to distribute our movies. I wish they would spend more time on education about sex and porn instead of ‘protection’.

Your movie opened the Pornfilmfestival Berlin in October 2020. How was the experience to be at a porn film festival in the middle of a pandemic?

It was a crazy experience. I arrived first at the movie theater half an hour before the premiere started. Due to the many restrictions for indoor events, the lobby was almost empty. I had nothing but fleeting memories from the past years in my head. It felt weirdly abstract without the tangled people, familiar faces showing up in every corner, spontaneous flirts, kink and tenderness all over the place. At our premiere screening, about 25 people showed up. This was a booked out cinema hall in times of corona! Luckily, the festival staff managed the whole festival with so much humor. It became the most intimate festival experience. Still, it was so not the same without all the fantastic people who are traveling to Berlin for it every year. Luckily, an additional online version of the festival took place, thanks to PinkLabel.TV.

What does it mean for you to be at a public screening of your own films?

As much as I like creating porn, I like to observe people watching it, how it changes them, how they react to what is screened. From laughter to tears, from arousal to shivers, everything is possible. Watching porn teaches us so much about ourselves, our desires and fears –sometimes even things we don’t even want admit towards ourselves. Porn gives so much more than just an erection.

What does the project gain from being on PinkLabel.TV?

You folks did a great job of creating such a diverse and strong platform! And it definitively allows us to earn some money for doing the porn we love, without needing to adapt to mainstream porn aesthetics or being strangled by the male gaze.

How does collaboration aid in the project’s vision?

We carefully choose the people to work with us. Luckily, Berlin is full of great artists and performers. We often do work trades between us. Sometimes, just one thing leads for to another. For example, the musician Ani Klang composed the score for my film and I shot a music video for her in exchange. She wanted to shoot it in a beautiful abandoned warehouse in Berlin. I involved Theo in the project, knowing he has a huge fetish for concrete. This is how he found the perfect scenery for his episode of Urban Smut.

Do you plan to take on new directors for future shorts? Are there any locations that are off limits?

I don’t think there is anything off-limits for us as long as all involved people consent to it and feel comfortable. And yes, there are still plenty of places we wanted to shoot at! One of the top of my list are the Catacombes of Paris, in which I fell in love with when I lived in France.

But in the end none of us really knows what will happen next. At the moment, we try to get safe and sane through the pandemic. 

Can you tell us about some of your other projects? How can people contact you if they are interested in collaborating?

We all have other work worth to be checked out. Each of us has own studios on PinkLabel.TV: Katy Bit is the founder of Cum Different and has some great films like “Last Call”. Finn Peaks is a great performer if you ever looking for a stripping glitter boy. Theo Meow and Candy Flip did a great feature film called “The Sad Girls of the Mountains”. And if you are into BDSM, I did some other short films and published a black and white photo book together with Sadie Lune. It’s about a Domme who holds some queers in her basement to fulfill her desires. And yes, we are always happy to read or (in better times) meet new people who want to collaborate or just talk to us! Either contact us personally or on our Instagram @Urban_Smut.

Watch all the films at URBAN SMUT.