Item #40330 A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970. SUCK.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.
A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.

125.

A group of printed documents from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, the world’s first erotic film festival, organised by the editors of Suck and held in venues across Amsterdam between 26th-29th November, 1970.

i) S.E.L.F. (Sexual, Egalitarian & Libertarian Fraternity) membership card, unused. Black ink on pink card. Folded twice, as issued. Measures 11.7x21.8cm. unfolded. The card also acted as a pass for the festival, which quickly sold out. S.E.L.F. was created by the editors of Suck as a means to arrange the erotic film festival (membership, which was limited to 300, was seen as a way to provide legal cover against potential police intervention).

ii) S.E.L.F. Statement. Mimeographed sheet of pink paper. Prints the statement of the aims of S.E.L.F. (“Tenderness, mutual respect, freedom and tolerance - these are all words we should associate with sex and love”), first published in Suck #3, and a form for membership application.

iii) Poster announcing the first Wet Dream Film Festival. Printed in red on pink paper. 44x34cm. Provides information, a list of the jury panel (Anna Beeke, Maurice Girodias, Al Goldstein, Germaine Greer, Christine Keeler, Jay Landesman and Richard Neville, among others), the S.E.L.F. Statement, etc.

iv) Variant copy of the poster, printed in black on white paper (first printed in Suck #4).

v) Blank form for filmmakers/distributors to complete with the technical, production and publicity information of the films entered in the festival. Mimeographed on pink paper.

vi) Information sheet about the Organization Center (Herengracht 156, basement of Nederlandse Filmmakers Coöperatie in house of actor/director, Lily van den Bergh), where people coming to the festival had to register and get S.E.L.F. membership card. Printed on red/pink WDFF stationery. 2 copies.

vii) Film programme and venue information sheet. Printed on red/pink WDFF stationery. “Hello Suckers, welcome to exotic erotic amsterdam for the First Wet Dream Film Festival, presented by SUCK, a four day review of moving erotic images.”

viii) List of prize winners of the first festival. Printed on red/pink WDFF stationery. Also lists the jury members, and gives “one night stand awards to” (among others) Fred Baker, Carolee Schneemann, Steve Dwoskin, Peter Gidal and Didi Wadidi.

ix) Sheet of red/pink WDFF stationery, unused.

x) 1st WDFF Award Certificate, unused. Printed in red on pink card stock. 24.3x29.1cm.

xi) Suck Christmas postcard (1970). Printed postcard reproducing a sepia photograph of a nun fellating a monk (from the collection of Roland Topor). Verso states: “From the friendly staff of SUCK, first European Sexpaper.” The card was printed with money left over from the Wet Dream Film Festival and sent out to “Suck subscribers, S.E.L.F. members, friends and lovers”. After receiving his copy Brion Gysin informed the editors that the image was a still from a film, “Soeur Vaseline made circa 1918” (in fact, 1925), last seen by him “in Marseille circa 1957” (Wet Dreams, p.122). Two copies.

All items Fine or Near Fine.

An excellent collection of printed documentation from the 1st Wet Dream Film Festival, an event that preceded both the International Erotic Film Festival in San Francisco (December 1970) and the New York Erotic Film Festival (December 1971), and was intended by its organisers to promote the goal of sexual freedom.

While Heathcote Williams considered the festival as an occasion “where the Suck philosophy was put into practice”, and by Jim Haynes as “a very, very big success”, fellow jury member Germaine Greer saw it as a failed experiment. In particular, she lamented “the number of commercial porn films, made to exploit the misery of the deprived and the perverted”, and complained that, with the exception of Jean Genet’s homoerotic film, ‘Un chant d’amour’, the “underground films were not even genital” (The Madwoman’s Underclothes: Essays and Occasional Writings. NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986).

(12 items).

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