09/05/2026
I came to Brussels undocumented, fleeding a Masters and a bad experience in Portugal. Thomas and I have been touring Europe with our first p**n the year before, and was amazed by how welcoming, empowering and encouraging was the alt p**n community. When we arrived at the city and discovered that there wasn’t any p**n festival here, we wanted to recreate that. A space where our existences were visible through sexuality, where otherness was celebrated, where dialogue, construction and deconstruction were key, where we could exist through our bodies and reclaim visibility and connection where we are denied. We then managed to contact all the people that were dealing with the same concerns at the time, and begun to imagine what was to become the BXLPFF.
A year passed with countless reunions, rooms filled with joy and discussions about sexuality, our definition of p**nography, of society, of a festival… little by little a team was formed, ideas were shared, and the festivals framework was created. At the end, of the dozens of people there, 5 stayed for a crazy adventure. Marianne, Cilu, Thomas, Baxter and I. Celia joined us along the way, bringing the know how of a film industry that was once foreign to us. We passed one year trying to prove to the city that we were worth it.
Nobody wanted us. We stayed negotiating for a long time, then Covid came, then the cultural sector was in crisis, then we had to negotiate again and prove our place. And we made it.
5 years in the future, another has ended ❤️🔥 it is crazy to think how far we’ve come. I came to Europe and got trapped into the despise granted to immigrants. No job, getting rejection after rejection. But I had this. I had my friends, and this project that was more important than myself, where I should disappear in order to give birth to a collective body of resistance. From unemployment I was giving all my time to the communication of this event, to its production, its programming. I don’t mind sacrificing myself for a project. Specially because I know we are stronger together, and that we need to scream higher than stigma to be able to be heard and taken seriously. +
