The Pleasure in Pain

The Pleasure in Pain was born out of my curiosity about the ever-growing global interest in BDSM. When my research dispelled almost every mainstream preconception about kink, and a 1,600 capacity LGBTQ+ techno fetish event - Klub Verboten - started making headlines on Vice, Dazed, The Guardian and The Daily Mail, I knew there was a story to be told.

The film explores a vast array of different BDSM play from wax play to shibari, from impact play to trampling. The protagonists talk us through their motivations for pain play as well as the psychological journeys each session takes them on - from eye-watering pain to euphoric pleasure. I felt it was important to tell this story in a way that was accessible to the mainstream and not at risk of being branded as adult content. I’m therefore incredibly proud that we managed to deliver such a visceral, authentic exploration into BDSM without actually including any nudity or explicit sexual acts.

My time working on LGBTQ+ films taught me that clearly showing myself as a genuine ally was always the best way to obtain powerful soundbites and honest performances. I gained interest from the cast by creating a treatment that promised the opposite of a broadcast network documentary: cinematic photography, foregoing the conventional talking head documentary style and never looking down at the protagonists - only interviewing Superman and never Clark Kent.

The kink community in London are heavily documented by its members using 35mm stills cameras. To pay homage to this analogue aesthetic and help the cast to further understand that the film comes from a place of allyship, we chose to shoot part of the film on anamorphic Super 8 film - an incredibly rare photographic format, which required custom modifications to the camera.

Given the prominence of Klub Verboten's techno-filled dance floors in the film, and the music genre of 'harsh noise' being popular during the BDSM sessions of the new wave of European kinksters, it felt essential that the score fused the sounds together and harmonised with the feelings and emotions described by the cast.

The experimental, hyperactive feel of the film, with its striking imagery, extreme highs, dark lows and mind-blowing educational sound bites, is intended to put the audience in their own BDSM scene - an opportunity for an endorphin rush and enlightenment if they can first accept the pain.