Truth or Dare is cinematically audacious and, at times, very moving. It is also very explicit, which is why director Maja Classen places a caption at the film’s start to give ample warning that the film that follows will not be to everybody’s taste.
The documentary features a selection of people who both discuss and engage in sex. They are a mix of queer, non-binary, trans, straight, polyamorous, sex workers, porn performers, in relationships or not. What is clear from the beginning is that the process of discovery through sex is consensual, and that boundaries can be crossed only when one is invited or encouraged to do so by the other party.
“I selected some protagonists for the test shoot. Most of them had worked on DIY porn and ethical post porn shoots before. So having sex in front of the camera wasn’t an issue for them, but revealing something more personal was,” director Classen tells Business Doc Europe. “And that was what I was interested in. I wanted to do the opposite of conventional porn. I wanted to open the space for tenderness and vulnerability.”
So she asked her protagonists each to invite a partner, who they love or have a crush on and to be filmed in their homes and/or during a later collective session.
“The premise was of ‘intimate encounter,’ where everything could happen, but nothing would have to. We always did a warm-up ritual together with the team and then I asked the protagonists to do a boundary talk together which I guided a bit. When the encounter started, I stepped back from directing and let the protagonists follow their own flow. It was very touching for me to see that this kind of intimacy was possible with a team present. I must give credit to my team, especially the DoP, Alina Albrecht. She found the perfect balance between curiosity and sensitivity. The two of us communicated with our bodies during these sessions. It was like a dance.”
An opening monologue by Lo-FI Cherry, one of the female participants, describes how she was deeply upset when her marriage broke up, but was nevertheless determined to “experience, live and breathe,” all the time carrying a “vibrating ball” inside her. She wanted to have sex with people, and arranged to meet a trans woman to watch porn and let matters take their course. The trans woman, a “yoga goddess,” was accompanied by a friend who made the experience even more successful and enjoyable.
We see a tender scene between a woman (Jasko) and non-binary Puck in which permissions are continually sought before taking their sex to the next level. We then see a penetrative encounter (fellatio, intercourse) between a man (Jorge) and a non-binary person (Bishop) who had long been aware of each other’s presence and are now ready to benefit from their mutual attraction to each other. One confirms their HIV status in advance and a condom is used.
Then the whole group plays Truth or Dare – that tied and tested method to overcome inhibitions – to choose a partner for talk or touch.
Throughout the film, the camera snakes through Berlin’s nocturnal club scene, curiously bereft of people but accompanied by an emotive narration by Nicky (they/them) that describes encounters on the ‘sex positive’ scene, where signs of availability/willingness are given and either responded to or not.
Elsewhere, Chilean Jorge tells how his fascistic cocaine-addicted father was violently anti-homosexual, admitting how he would kill any son of his who was gay. (The father had, apparently, murdered his own brother in the past, but we are not told if this was over his sexual orientation or not).
When Bishop returns to the Church after a long time away, the first sermon they hear is how ‘man must not lie down with man,’ at which point they resolve, this time finally, to look elsewhere for comfort and succour.
Director Classen tells how “joyful and rewarding” the whole process of making Truth or Dare was. “There was a magical flow, everyone poured their hearts into it. It’s rare, but I always came home happy after a day of working on this project. And I learned so much about consent practices. How consent talk can even become part of a sexy foreplay. I also learned things about sexual health practice that I didn’t know. I had no idea that HIV positive people who are under treatment can lower their virus count to ‘undetectable’ – which means it’s also not transmittable. This means their encounters may be safer than most heterosexual dating scenarios, where lots of people don’t even test, before having unprotected sex. I also learned a lot about the spectrum of gender and gender fluidity.”
One major hurdle she had to overcome was getting the project financed, until she found a guardian angel in the form of Saralisa Volm, actress and producer at the Berlin-based production company POISON, “who made it happen anyway.”
For every audience member who embraces the film, there will be many who will be fearful, suspicious, even terrified of its content. That said, director Classen’s treatment of the subject may be up front and personal, but it is far from confrontational.
“I try to do the opposite of confrontation. My purpose is to build a bridge with this film and to reach a wider audience, people who might be scared and have prejudices against queers and promiscuity,” she says. “I want to gently take them by the hand and show them that there is nothing to be afraid of. It’s all human. We all desire, we are all shy, we all have fears and boundaries. Once we start to talk about this, we can overcome fear, shame and hate. We can connect and become more playful and enjoy life.”
“In the end I know that my films are not everyone’s cup of tea,” she adds. “And that’s okay. We consciously included content warnings, so people can decide freely, if they want to watch it or not. If people decide to watch it and still get upset, I would try to listen and understand their perspective. If the film manages to reach a few fearful hearts, who would make peace with sex positivity and queerness, it would make me very happy. Truth or Dare can be a small step in the long process of overcoming taboos by creating visibility.”
