Soft touch pornography In the 1970s and 1980s Brazil had Pornochanchada, while Japan had its Roman Porno that has been building a cult status thanks to screenings at major film festivals.
Anyone who lived or visited Brazil in the 1970s and 1980s will probably be aware – even if they say they never watched them – that Brazil had a genre of soft porn known as Pornochanchada. What to Brazil was Pornochanchada, was to the Japanese audiences known as Roman Porno.
Roman Porno was a label of adult films produced and released in cinemas in Japan between 1971 and 1988 by Nikkatsu, one of Japan's most respected studios and distributors that was founded back in 1912. Nikkatsu, which amalgamated the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, or literally "Japan Motion Pictures", offered young filmmakers the creative freedom, within certain limits, to use sexy and provocative titles and to include a sex scene every ten minutes, but the shooting had to be wrapped in a maximum of ten days and within strict budget limits.
Many filmmakers who started their careers on the label went on to become serious and respected directors. But all good things must come to an end and in 1988, Roman Porno ceased production, partly as a result of the increasingly easy access its base audience had to more explicit adult films. But the titles are still known and recognised by moviegoers around the world, regardless of their age.
Unlike the average pornographic movies of today, there was no real sexual intercourse in Roman Porno. All content had to be officially approved as a fiction film by the Japanese Film Classification and Rating Committee.
Since the 1970s, titles such as A Woman Called Sada Abe, Lovers Are Wet and The Stroller in the Attic have travelled the world on the commercial circuit, but in the last five years these films have been rediscovered, gaining a cult status which has seen them being screened at prestigious film festivals such as New York, San Sebastián, Sitges, Locarno and now, appropriately, the home of Pornochanchada, Rio de Janeiro.
2016 was the 45th anniversary of the birth of Roman Porno, and Nikkatsu has taken the opportunity to relaunch the label and begin the production of new films with the aim of resurrecting its role as a space for experimentation focused on new forms of cinematic expression. Five leading directors have joined the project to develop their first Roman Porno titles and new projects can be expected to emerge in the coming years.
The Roman Porno retrospective at Festival do Rio offered a selection of the label’s best known titles as well as some of the new films produced in the past two years.
To view the programme, click here.
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