Antonio Da Silva Talks Tricking In Bathrooms, and the Secrets Behind His High-Art Porn

In the span of only a few years, Portugese filmmaker Antonio Da Silva has created a collection of innovative, thrillingly dirty queer short films that mix elements of experimental cinema, early gay porn, X-Tube, and surrealism to depict the unique ways gay men have sex today. Da Silva’s films have explored the Grindr experience, public sex, body types, fetishes, aging, love, and exhibitionism. His most recent work, PIX features thousands of traded phone pics cut and animated together to form one very dirty encounter. When Jurgen Bruning reminded me of his work in our conversation a few weeks back, I decided to reach out to Da Silva, who lives and works in London — using another name to distinguish from his XXX output. We Skyped to talk about his creative process, his influences, and how his films reflect his obsessions.

Adam: Hi, Antonio, how are you?

Antonio: A little bit tired, but it’s okay.

Why are you tired? It’s not that late in London.

No, it’s 8PM here, but just yesterday I ended up drinking a little bit too much, so I have a hangover. How have you been?

How balanced is your life?

I’m a little bit of a workaholic as well. Especially lately I’ve been really busy all the time and sometimes I don’t know how to stop and what to do when I have some time off.

Do you know where that comes from? Is it a family trait?

It’s a good question. My parents they really are hard-working people and they don’t know how to stop and take time off and go on holidays. It might come from that I’m sure.

What was your upbringing like in Portugal? Was being gay a challenge for you?

A lot of people in Portugal still struggle with it. We have a very strong Catholic background and it’s something that makes it really hard to open up about sexuality and relationships you know? So it’s a blockage for everyone. I was trapped by that, which is why it took me a while to let it come out. Just a few years ago I decided to let this queerness and issues they need to be spoken about. It was very hard for me. I have this self-punishing instinct in the beginning. What am I doing? All this images and bodies – what will God think about this? It’s stupid but it took me a while to get out of these things. London helped me a lot to get out of my country and my comfort zone, just to see myself in a totally different context. Slowly I managed to get a bit more free within myself.

Tell me where you came from and how films sort of became the path of your life.

My background is in fine art and art and design. I was connected with art since a little boy. Drawing was my big passion when I was little. Then when I got to university I started studying multimedia, so I specialized in sound design. When I was finishing my degree in sound design I started to collaborate with a lot of dance and performance artists. It was a very mixed atmosphere and I wanted to combine sound design and dance and performance so I specialized in dance films. That’s why I came to London and I wanted to combine two things that I’m very interested in — dance films and fine art. So then did two M.A.’s and after that I started to work. I was working as a video artist but I started my short films, and they started to go to film festivals, not just to the video arts scene.

 

What were some of your early shorts like? I’m presuming not like the sexual ones, right?

They are a little bit like the sexual ones — the technique is the same. They are journeys about encounters with people in places. They’re about certain trips that I made in my life. Like art residencies, going to certain places. Being in touch with people. Speaking about certain communities. They were movement-based films, you know. Visual storytelling and — I don’t want to make this too public but Antonio is a kind of persona that I created for this queer work. I have other work, I do other films, other things to pay my bills.

And you work under another name for other things?

Yes. Antonio da Silva is just for the gay films.

When did you decide that you wanted to make films that dealt with queer sexuality?

There was 2010, I was totally lost and I didn’t know what to do. All the grants in Europe and everywhere stopped, so it was a period where I was really lost and a longtime relationship ended, and I just wanted to rediscover myself and the queer homoerotic films is something I had in the back of my head that I really wanted to explore. That year I was totally lost, I just started to bring that issue out in my work, and then I made my first film.

The first film was Bankers?

It was Mates.

It’s such a beautiful film. Can you explain what the film is for people who haven’t seen it?

The film is a very short film about how short and ephemeral these quick encounters using phone applications like Grindr are. So the film basically shows from the chat online through exchanging pictures and the actual meeting of the two people. So each shot is a different guy, from a different encounter, but they all come together as one. Mates was just an experiment, but actually it was a personal story I was living. At that time I was very much into Grindr. I was free to explore this new device, this new way of interacting with people. From there I ended up doing most of the casting for Mates, so the film is a result of this lost period of my life in which I just wanted to find myself through other people and use these encounters to find out more about me and the community.

An image from PIX.
An image from PIX.
Mates relates in a way to your new film PIX?

Yes. Totally. PIX is a more extended, more developed version of Mates. PIX is what I wanted to do in Mates, but I wasn’t that clear in my head about the technique and also in Mates it was more important to do the actual scene of the encounters. I think each of my films they are somehow a consequence of each other. They really influence what I’m doing now, what I’m doing next. I learn from each film and they give me directions for what I should do next. PIX was something that was you know, that born in Mates but it wasn’t totally out there, and I just decided to take it further.

I just adore it, I think it’s my favorite of your films. I really loved it. It’s so succinct and clear in its purpose in what it says, in such a brilliantly inventive way. You distill the modern gay sexual experience in a matter of minutes. It’s the kind of film you could show to people in 20 – 30 years to say, this is what this era was all about.

Thanks. It’s nice to know that you engaged in the film. It’s visually appealing as well. It has content, and visuals.

One of the things that I think is — aside from being a very good documentarian is that you’re also a terrific editor. 

Thanks. The point of my films is the editing and something else is the sound. I said to you, I have a background in sound design and then from sound design I went to study dance film and the big thing from dance film is about editing. It comes a lot from the video clip language. It’s not the same. Dance film is about bringing narrative and stories to dance. Basically it’s that. I have a background in sound design, and I start to train in image, in editing, in making dance films. That’s the key point of my technique.

 

Were there key films that you saw or studied that influenced the way you make your films today, because it is a very singular style — either in form or content?

Some artist films and the films of Maya Deren. I also got totally obsessed when I saw Wakefield Poole’s films. I connect a lot with him, because he also has this kind of background in performance art and dance film, and suddenly moving to porn. I just love him as a person because I ended up meeting him in Berlin a few years ago. Yeah the content and the whole background and everything. Also people like Travis Mathews, who I know you know quite well, it was extremely inspiring to see — probably one of the first times I saw someone from now doing something that has the quality of what I was looking for as well. I also like the idea of the Dogme movement from Lars Von Trier.

Did you ever share your films with Wakefield?

No, I have the feeling that Wakefield is in another dimension nowadays. He’s in the restaurant and cooking. I’m not sure if he is really interested to see what people are doing about sexuality and stuff like that. I got this feeling. I would imagine if I was at this age, I would do the same, and I wouldn’t want people to bother me just because in the past I did certain kind of films.

I think he would like them, though.

I thought so too. He’s the kind of person I would like to share and show him, maybe it will mean something to him, because of how much he means to me. But I don’t know. I don’t want to bother people.

For me Bijou is the masterpiece of all gay porn.

But you know Take One? Man, it’s the best film I’ve ever seen in my life.

I guess I have to watch it again, it didn’t totally gel for me the first time I saw it.

First time I saw I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was the big masterpiece for me. I know Bijou is a classic, but I think Take One totally took me off of everything. I saw the most hot scenes I’ve ever seen in gay sex films. The whole thing was extremely well shot and the narrative everything. That’s mine.

Let’s go through each of your films for a few minutes and talk about some of the intricacies of them. Let’s start with Bankers.

Bankers is a situation that I found out by accident. One day going to a toilet on my way home from work, someone made a sign. I followed this person into the urinal and I found this situation that became my obsession for a year, and that was this was a bank district, a bank area in London in which I never thought cruising would happen there. This man took me to a certain toilet in which, it was quite discrete, and everyone that would go there was mostly for the purpose of cruising. They were in ties and suits, so they looked like bankers. They could have been lawyers or whatever. Then I just became obsessed with going there and trying to understand what’s going on and finding a way to capture this situation. I began as an observer from the cubicle, trying to watch from under the door. But that wasn’t enough and I had to jump in the action and take the risk and hide the camera under my jacket and try to take a camera there in a blind way, I didn’t know what the camera was recording. I was just pointing it randomly. I ended up going there like 23 times and recording and putting myself into situations and going back home and seeing what’s going on there and trying to bring it together in a film in which people can understand the cruising there.
 

 

So you had your cock out and were hooking up with guys to make the film?

Yeah I was tricking as well. I put my cock out and was part of the action. It is a fetish that I had. I have a thing for men — working men, guys that they are in suits and they are — it’s not just a suit for a suit, I really like the classical, typical man that works. I don’t want a friend to just put a suit on, that doesn’t work. It has to be a real man who wears a suit.

That one and Mates were the first one that started to get you noticed?

Yeah, they were two very different styles of approaching things. Gingers had a bigger impact on the internet. And I guess when people who watched Gingers found out I had more films, I think it made it a little bit of a boost around, because the three of them are very different.

Gingers and Daddies are sort of similar in that they’re both more traditional documentary films, interviewing people — groups of gingers and daddies about the sexual identities, these different roles that we take on as gay people, right?

A still from Gingers.
A still from Gingers.
Yeah. Gingers and Daddies are about meeting people and asking them to undress. How comfortable people are in their own skin, and it’s about me as well. I want to find out more about these people. Gingers was a fetish that I found out that I had. I was attracted by really pale skin guys, with preferably bright eyes, and red hair. It’s about the fact that I admire them somehow, their beauty, and I want them to be exposed to myself, so it’s about this exposition of the body, and them talking.

What I like is that you can tell that it’s something that you are connected to instead of just something you thought was popular and would get attention.

Exactly, I think people can sense the camera enjoys what’s its doing, what it’s capturing. This ginger thing was a wave that suddenly came out and I sensed that it was a trend, and maybe the film contributed a little to the trend, but I had a passionate reason for making it. I wanted to find out more why I’m attracted to this kind of guy. I had these questions, is it just personality, is it physical and this experience gave me a few answers, I can understand much better. Actually I’m not attracted that much anymore, after I did the film. That’s the thing about making the films, my fetishes get solved, and I’m relieved I can stop obsessions and do something else.

What did you feel like you came to know about why you liked gingers?

All the gingers I met told the same story. I found out that a lot of the gingers are as a child, pointed at, have prejudice directed at them, and that’s what makes them become very strong and build power and confidence in their adult lives. So these guys had their problems and I can see now they are, some of them, have good jobs, actually the roles they have are about directing people, having big responsibilities, just for revenge. That’s one of the qualities, and I know there’s a particular thing related with smell, and there’s also a very interesting thing in visual arts, and fine arts. There’s many people who used and were inspired by redheaded models. There’s something about red-heads that affects culture and arts.

What about Daddies? Have you quelled your daddy obsession?

No I think that’s more about me. I’m becoming a kind of a daddy. I have salt-and-pepper hair. That was about me trying to understand my own condition in a few years. Daddies was a very simple story, something that I wanted to do while I was in San Francisco. I had met you and you were telling me about things you were shooting there. I thought that was amazing. You go to a festival and meet people that’s fine, but you can also take it as a good opportunity to you know, even to make work, as we did.

What’s next for you?

I’m finishing another film. It’s a film about dancers. It’s just dancers, but all dancers from Portugal and there’s a very specific reason of course for making this. And then I’m also working on another film in cooperation with someone that has been filming a cruising place for many years and he started to exchange messages with me on Skype and slowly started sending me this archive of material which is amazing. I’m working on that. I just want to make as many films as possible. I want to release films one after the other to see what happens. To see how people react. I love to see people’s reactions.

Do you think that you will want to make more feature length films?

I’m making shorts on purpose because I love short films. I never aim to do a feature length film, but actually I do think I’m gonna do one because people have so many questions about my films, and actually they are all a very long process to make, and um, you know, I might make a feature length film in which I explain to people the process, that’s it. The film’s just making everything clear to everyone so I don’t have any more these questions. The actual thing, seeing the whole process. In some situations it’s more interesting. It could be a potential feature length film. Like Bankers or even Mates. I don’t think Gingers needs to go that far. Or Daddies, but those two could be something. Or putting together the process of doing things. They are documentaries. I never passes in my head to make a fiction feature. I’m not able to do that.

See all of Antonio da Silva’s work at his website.
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Adam Baran is a filmmaker, blogger, former online editor of Butt Magazine and co-curator of Queer/Art/Film. His short film JACKPOT, about a porn-hunting gay teen, won Best Short Film at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and was recently featured on The Huffington Post, Queerty, and Towleroad, among others. He is a features programmer at Outfest Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival and NewFest in New York. In his spare time, he complains about things to his friends. “Fisting for Compliments”, his weekly musings about the intersection of sex, art, porn, and history, will appear every Monday on TheSword. You can contact him at Adam@TheSword.com and follow him on Twitter at @ABaran999. Check out his previous columns in the Fisting For Compliments Archive.

4 thoughts on “Antonio Da Silva Talks Tricking In Bathrooms, and the Secrets Behind His High-Art Porn”

  1. I appreciate that this filmmaker is focusing on what turns him on — but, gawd damn, this looks and sounds like the same tired mainstream porn shit we’ve always had — but it’s just been dressed up and presented to seem like it’s an indie auteurist’s vision. The trailer for PIX (and MATES for that matter) says it all — the only experience in this guy’s universe is that made up by nearly identical, headless guys with the same hot body. Regardless if fats and olds and uglies all hook up and have sex and make up a huge portion of the gay planet, for this guy and his films, they are nonexistent.

    Yes, I get it, people want to see movies with people they find attractive, and there are tickets to sell. And I haven’t seen the full films yet, but just viewing the trailers, the depictions on screen here seem to only reflect his tiresome view of what’s hot, just like most of the other crappy porn that clogs our world right now — I mean, I can dig a “guy in a suit” fetish, but when he mentions in the interview that he’s into a classical, typical man that works — well, duh, so is the rest of the fucking world. But classical working men look all kinds of ways, with all kinds of bodies and colors of skin. Just like “gingers” have all kinds of body types and personalities and histories. But his movies don’t show the great diversity of “working men” or “bankers” or “gingers” — just what he would find hot on Grindr.

    He may sell his movies on his website, and he may be the darling of the gay film festival circuit, but is there something here more than just more gonzo porn? Is there truth here? Or just his truth? Jurgen Bruning? Isn’t he the one who fucked up Bruce La Bruce’s filming?

    I hope I am wrong — I hope Da Silva blows us all away. But I am so tired of seeing this same fucking bullshit all the time, with interviewers kissing a film’s (and filmmaker’s) ass because there’s some cute boys and some cock in it and it’s about “hookup culture” as though that’s everyone’s experience anyway, and has nothing new going for it except for a few techno flourishes (i.e., gimmicks) and some clunky tie-ins to social media.

    If you have salt and pepper hair, I hope I get to see some salt and pepper hair in your movies one day.

    1. As long as it is considered “artistic” then it’s allowed.. I take it you have never seen any other short films on Vimeo that also feature full frontal male nudity and erections.. Vimeo is not the same as YouTube when it comes to nudity.

  2. PICS is very cool and relevant to me… bankers is a nice idea but it’s horrible from a technical stabdpoint… even the foley work is bad (sounds fx). the other clips i sampled we’re all softof embarassingly pretentious in a europeans-smoking-cigarettes-thinking-its-art kind of way. he needs to talk less (f)art house and focus more on his craft. i think the most artistic thing about him is his name.

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