F*ck For Forest

The hippies always believed that free love would help make the world a better place. Berlin charity Fuck For Forest has taken the concept a step further, and as this absorbing and at time genially oddball documentary recounts, set about raising funds for environmental causes by making and selling amateur porn on the internet.

The transition from their grungy but oddly fairy-tale Berlin headquarters through to the rainforest is where the film comes into its own.

The film, winner of the Best Feature Documentary at the Warsaw International Film Festival and which screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, follows the determined, naïve and gently exuberant antics of the key members of FFF as they roam Berlin looking for like-minded souls to engage in a little charity porn action.

Michael Marczak’s film F*ck For Forest smartly never attempts to make a judgment on these neo-hippies as they embrace their concept with wide-eyed enthusiasm in the belief that their internet porn can help save tribal cultures in the Amazon.

The four key members of group, Leona Johansson, Tommy Hol Ellingsen, Natty Mandeau and Danny Devero (along with enthusiastic supporter Kaajal Shetty),  may well seem to live in a fantasy world (enhanced by plant-based psychedelic drugs), but they have actually also made some money…and the film follows them from Berlin through to a trip to the Amazon.

The transition from their grungy but oddly fairy-tale Berlin headquarters through to the rainforest is where the film comes into its own. It is amusing and entertaining to see them trying to convince people to take part in the porn, but when the FFF gang reach the villages and strip-off and become one with nature that their good intentions are placed into stark contrast with the very real needs of the villagers.

In fact during one meeting  the villagers, bemused by the FFF folk’s ‘wacky’ neo-hippy attire, say they don’t want to be involved in receiving funding, mainly because they simply don’t trust the admittedly rather naïve ‘save the planet’ speech.

The FFF team are engagingly oddball characters, all from different countries but clearly all sharing a bond they come from complex backgrounds and have adopted a Peter Pan attitude about never really wanting to grow up. Their naïve determination to try and find a way to do the right thing using non-exploitative porn (and in no way is this a porn film, despite a goodly amount of skin being on seen on screen) is oddly engaging, and the film an intriguing delve into one of the most obscure of charity subcultures.