The San Francisco Porn Festival may have a new, more algorithmically acceptable name—Blush (Fri/31-Sat/1 at Roxie Theater, SF)—but the long-running orgy of erotic expressions still encompasses a breathtaking amount of art and pleasure in its two days. The “celebration of the Bay Area’s adult film history and a look forward to the innovations of today’s erotic moviemakers” puts women and gender non-conforming creators at the forefront, and is put on by international adult film streaming platform PinkLabel.TV
This year includes action-packed programs like “Reel/Sex” (“beautiful, candid, and uncensored short adult documentary films”) and “Fucking/Fun” (“experimental, explicit, funny, and just plain fun to watch shorts”), as well as a workshop on how to make your own porn less boring and predictable (“A Cinematic Approach to Sex with Shine Louise Houston“).
Kicking off the fest is shorts program “Art/Smut” which, as its name suggests, takes a more artistic approach to the genre. It’s chock-full of sensual and even challenging visual statements that take on technology, gender, queer history, and much more. Two of the filmmakers who will be on-hand—Alex Mendo (Garden of Adams) and Colette Standish (Chasing the Light: Dreamscape of the Erotized Body Video 1)—spoke with me over email about their work, and how it is intimately connected with San Francisco’s past and present.
Alex Mendo’s work “explores intimacy and human connection. Born in Dallas, educated in Boston, and formerly a software designer in San Francisco, she left the tech industry in 2024 to pursue filmmaking and art full time. Her creative practice is influenced by Ecstatic Dance, whose improvisational movement informs the physical language of her films. Through her ongoing project Human Bodies, Mendo creates works celebrating desire, in collaboration with friends and lovers to craft deeply personal, body-positive cinematic experiences.”
48 HILLS Hi Alex! I’m fascinated by the fact that you left the tech industry to pursue film and art. What sparked this decision, and how do you think your tech background influences your work?
ALEX MENDO Working in tech feels like an accident. I have always been a very creative and practical person, constantly balancing what the soul desires and what the brain thinks is right. I found work as a software designer not because technology was interesting to me, but because I genuinely thought I could find a balance of creativity and practicality.
I was working at one of the largest and oldest tech companies before many people knew what AI was. I turned down the opportunity to be a designer at the forefront of this technology because it didn’t speak to my creative soul. Eventually, I left tech to travel and pursue art, and two and a half years later, I settled back in the Bay Area happily identifying as both an artist and a massage therapist.
Today, many creatives rely on AI as the main process they use to create images. Personally, I do as little alterations as I can to my work. Everything I create is inspired by the natural world and my aesthetic remains true to this. I prefer to work with as little equipment as possible, so that I can be agile and make decisions in the moment with my subject and the landscape we are shooting in.
48 HILLS Your piece Garden of Adams subverts traditional pornography by “isolating the penis and placing it within natural landscapes, softening and recontextualizing its organic shape.” Can you tell me about the inspiration for this and, after looking at a gorgeous clip, how you accomplished the film technically?
ALEX MENDO When I was first introduced to porn, it was a scary experience. I had no safe space to learn about male anatomy online. Simply browsing thumbnails felt like my eyes were being blasted. Porn performers were meant to serve the erect penis, creating a power dynamic that came off as domineering and harsh.
My goal with Garden of Adams was to explore male anatomy changing from flacid to erect without any physical stimulation. I filmed several people attempting to achieve erections without touch. I cropped away the person, and placed the growing penis into a lush landscape that I filmed separately.
Garden of Adams creates the safe feeling to explore sexuality that I didn’t have when first watching porn.
48 HILLS It still seems brave, especially now, to focus one’s art on sex, or have it be a big part of your aesthetic. As a younger artist, what drives you to explore sex through art, and who are some of your influences?
ALEX MENDO My biggest inspiration is first the human body, and second is the natural landscape. I have been photographing the human form for over a decade. Naturally, after years of exploring, I felt drawn to capture my sexuality. For many years I kept this work a secret. I took a scary leap and submitted my film Body Language to Hump! Film Fest and it won the award for “Best Sex”! Afterwards, I couldn’t shake the desire to continue making art influenced by my sexuality. Sex has become a very important part of my identity, and it’s hard to create work about anything else. I have always been a very open person, so it feels intuitive to share this part of myself with the world, despite the potential consequences.
I am in much of my work, and I am very aware that I have certain privileges as a young white cis woman with a slender figure. I have really enjoyed working with others, and as my work expands I hope it continues including more aspects of sexuality, gender, body shape, and age.
48 HILLS As you pointed out, nature is a huge part of your work as well. What particularly draws you to ground your work in the natural world?
ALEX MENDO For a long time, I’ve felt a type of freedom when I am nude in nature that is hard to explain. When I started photographing myself and others, I felt like I was able to capture that feeling. I feel totally grounded and present. I like that you say my work is grounded by the natural world. In this way, I feel that my nervous system and my work are one and the same.
Colette Standish‘s work “explores consciousness, eroticism, and embodiment. Educated at St. Martin’s College of Art in London and the San Francisco Art Institute, she creates experimental, artist-driven cinema. Her films include Viaggio: A Journey, screened at festivals throughout Europe and the United States, and the ongoing series Chasing the Light: Dreamscape of the Erotized Body. Her video Phoenix Rising was featured at ZAZ10TS in Times Square, and she contributed a dream sequence to Christopher Coppola’s feature Sammy & Quinn.
48 HILLS Congrats on your screening at the fest, Colette! Can you tell me a bit about your ongoing series, “Chasing the Light: Dreamscape of the Erotized Body,” video one of which is screening here? Has this project been gestating for a long time?
COLETTE STANDISH Thank you! Yes, the idea for “Chasing the Light: Dreamscape of the Erotized Body (Video 1)” had been gestating for a few years. Finally, it developed into one of several video vignettes in time for an exhibition at the Anglim Trimble Gallery last year under the guise of Dreamscape of the Erotized Body. This visual symphony of prints and videos depicts a journey through the sensual labyrinth of the subconscious in pursuit of the ultimate erotic desire: the orgasm.
Each video explores the paradox of the erotic experience, where tension coils between contrasting forces and opposing energies that, upon release, ignite a kaleidoscope of light and color, transcending the erotic imagination from the subconscious world of dreams into the conscious world of being.
48 HILLS You’re a graduate of San Francisco Arts Institute. Can you tell me about your time there and what inspired you in general to pursue erotic art, especially expressed through experimental cinema?
COLETTE STANDISH My art has always centered around the role of eroticism, way before I graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute. In fact, the origins of eroticism in my art date back to my undergraduate years at Central Saint Martins School of Art in London in the 1990s. My focus then was on painting, drawing, and photography, which were my majors at the time. However, during my time at San Francisco Art Institute, there was an organic shift toward video, particularly experimental cinematography, which gave my art a subjective fluidity that my painting had eclipsed.
48 HILLS As you point out above, you’re a multidisciplinary artist who has done fascinating work in painting, filmmaking, music, photography, and writing. What aspect or aspects do you think unifies your work across these media?
COLETTE STANDISH The unifying theme across all these media, for me, is an absolute refusal to let my creative energy solidify. I am driven by a vital need for continuity and momentum—a desire to constantly flow and remain subjective, as opposed to giving in to objectification and solidity. Each medium is just a different state of matter traversing the same underlying current. In exploring various media, the subject matter remains fluid, open, and ever-evolving.
48 HILLS You contributed a dream sequence, which sounds incredible, to Christopher Coppola’s film Sammy & Quinn. Can you tell us a little about it and how it came about?
Born from a college assignment based on Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, the film Sammy and Quinn was spearheaded by Professor Christopher Coppola at the San Francisco Art Institute. The project offered a unique collaboration, allowing students to co-create dream sequences with music students from the University of Redlands Conservatory of Music.
Because of COVID restrictions, travel prevented out-of-town students from reaching the Bay Area. Filming took place in San Francisco with a skeleton crew of just three: Professor Coppola directing, a primary cinematographer, and myself stepping in as an occasional cinematographer, assistant director, and set photographer. It was an extraordinary masterclass in adaptability, with everyone wearing multiple hats to bring the vision to life, supported by a fantastic editing team. As my very first time on a film set, the learning curve was incredibly steep—intense, daunting, and exhilarating all at once. Working alongside Professor Coppola and his team remains one of my proudest professional milestones.
BLUSH FILM FESTIVAL Fri/31-Sat/1 at Roxie Theater, SF. More info here.
