Dear Condom Director on Making Safe Sex Steamier

Contraception isn't the sexiest of subjects, but rising young director Joanna Nordahl has sought to change perspectives with a steamy short film for the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU).

A raw, racy and honest portrait of safe sex, Dear Condom has been lauded for showing a range of body types and real-world encounters, though its frank attitude to nudity has seen the film controversially pulled from several platforms.

Recently signed to Pulse Films, the Swedish native - who splits her time between London and Stockholm - took shots under the duvet to discuss the importance of showcasing real bodies, freeing the nipple, and rebooting the dusty old 'sex sells' adage for a modern audience.

Director Joanna Nordahl

What was the brief from RFSU? Did you know instantly how you wanted to approach it, or did the idea develop incrementally?

The brief was presented to me as a collection of ideas that the agency/production company House of Radon and RFSU had been discussing for many months, while developing the organization’s new profile. They knew from the start that they wanted to find a fresh way to celebrate condoms with this film, and that they were interested in a mixture of scenes and textures as well as involving a number of Scandinavian influencers who could speak to the target market. 

Originally, the brief was more about the feeling of regret after not using protection, but the agency and client were very open to new suggestions, which to me, was of course very liberating and inspiring. I wanted to somehow find a sexy and less apologetic approach to it. 

I fell in love with the idea of being brutally honest in a non-commercial way, by presenting both the pros and cons of condoms, whilst somehow still keeping it hot. Having the film be a love/hate letter to the actual condom seemed like an interesting way to do that, and that opened my mind to the idea of having many different couples and multiple real experiences as the narrative. And of course – as soon as my creative team was attached, the idea developed and grew with our many conversations, especially when working with Erik Henriksson, who is an incredible DP.

Was the client completely on board with your treatment/concept? 

Both the client and agency had a great response to the concept, and some really great insights, so we started working very much as a team right away. Through the whole process the team at Radon lead by producer Sergej Israel really helped to get the message across and reassure the client that they could trust us, and that luxuries like 35mm, and creating a short film as opposed to a commercial length piece, would take the campaign to the next level.

The client was a bit concerned regarding reach when realizing the racy nature of the film – as some of their previous campaigns had been disapproved by certain social media platforms in the past. So we had to talk very early on about “how to not get blocked”, and keep thinking of PR strategies during the whole process.

There's a really great range of 'real' body types featured in the film, as well as different ethnicities, mixed-race and same-sex relationships - how did you approach casting and how important was it for you to promote a message of body positivity in the film?  

I’m a part of that final generation that grew up without social media, who only had magazines, TV and billboards to dictate the norms and beauty standards for us. That really damaged me as a teenager, and I think young people today aren’t buying into the bullshit that beauty, love or sexiness is just one thing anymore. When making a campaign that is aimed towards a really diverse group of contemporary people, I think it would be crazy not to cast a really diverse group of contemporary people to represent them. I think advertisement is interesting from that point of view right now – because of the budgets and reach there’s sometimes a real opportunity to push that envelope and help challenge the norms if even in a small way.

The film also features quite a bit of nudity - what made did you decide to show certain parts (so to speak) explicitly rather than leaving it to the imagination? Did the client ask you to dial it back at all? 

Many of the women I met during the casting process told me that they were annoyed by the female nipple censoring in the media, and tired of their bodies being treated differently to men’s. So I asked the whole cast – “what level of costume would make you feel most comfortable?”, “what type of sex scene would feel most authentic to you?”, “what would or would not make you feel equal to your partner in the scene?”, and then we created the boundaries for each individual couple’s scene and rehearsed them.

So in the end, the actual nudity in those scenes felt more like a natural way of keeping the film authentic rather than a thought-out concept or attempt to be explicit. The people who threw their clothes away did that because that’s what they’d normally do in that situation. RFSU as a company really stand for both body positivity and equality, so we had a very united idea of what we wanted to portray. We did discuss the responsibility that comes with showing nudity and how it could be perceived. So we decided that the most explicit scenes had to be approved by the cast before locking the edit.

All too often, sex on film ends up being not particularly sexy or authentic - how do you make contraception erotic?     

We all know that sex obviously sells, so we talked a lot about how to use that old dusty concept and be racy as a way of getting people’s initial attention but then slowly introduce the condoms as a twist in the narrative. By letting them be a natural part of the scenes we could suggest that they can actually be a part of the fun if your mindset towards them is positive and relaxed. 

I wanted the sex scenes to feel as authentic as possible but I knew that wouldn’t be easy. So the casting of course played a massive role – almost all of the couples were non-actors and either in a relationship or lovers. They were clearly attracted to each other and had natural chemistry that really just felt raw and sexy, even in the auditions. That really helped and gave us the type of electricity and desire needed to go from 0-100 in a short time without having to stage too much of the action. 

"I think most of us are on some level damaged by how sex is commonly portrayed in the media, both regarding gender roles and the censorship of the female body and diverse body types."

The hardest thing about the whole sex thing was to not fall into patterns and to constantly try to criticise and question the scenes we were creating as a way of staying away from reproducing sexist images that we’ve all seen a thousand times. I think most of us are on some level damaged by how sex is commonly portrayed in the media, both regarding gender roles and the censorship of the female body and diverse body types.  When dealing with a theme like this, it felt extra important to constantly take a step back and go “hold up, why are they standing against the wall like that? Because they want to? Or because they have been fed with the idea that they perhaps should? Or because I have been fed that idea?” I wanted to challenge the norms whilst keeping it true to the actors. On top of that it felt interesting to play with clichés, like having sex in a car, but twist it up by introducing a condom in the scene.   

RFSU also had some amazing insights – they said that a big problem when teaching young people about condoms is that the kids never see condoms in popular culture. In films, music videos and games that feature any kind of sex scene, there’s usually a cut when the condom would normally be pulled out and then another cut before it’s supposedly put on. That affirms the idea that putting on a condom is complicated, or that the “pause” that it causes could potentially destroy the entire night. For this reason, RFSU asked us to specifically make sure to have a segment in the film when someone actually pulls out a condom, clearly puts it on (even if we won’t show the genitals) and then “keeps having the sex”. 

The film was banned from various social platforms - on what grounds? Did the client challenge the ban or offer to re-cut the film? Were you surprised by the ban, particularly in Scandinavia which is perceived (at least by us Brits) as being more open-minded?  

Ha!  Yeah, generally Scandis are quite relaxed when it comes to these things, but most social media platforms are not! The major platform that banned the trailers was Facebook, but it’s hard to tell exactly why, since it wasn’t for logical reasons. Because the type of work RFSU does is actually allowed to be advertised on FB according to their guidelines, as well as paid content that involves passionate kissing etc. – but not even our non-nudity edits were approved. We cut many different versions of the trailers, with different levels of censoring, and tried them all before giving up on Facebook. 

Both RFSU and us knew from the start that the campaign was at great risk of being pulled from most sites – so we started working on alternative strategies. Involving influencers with big social media followings was one way – as they were really helpful and keen to spread the message on their platforms. Another way to get it to the target group was to push to get the trailers screened in the Scandinavian cinemas before movies that young people were most likely to attend. 

We did not want to compromise on the hero film in any way or make any censored versions of that one, so building the campaign site www.dearcondom.org became a way of controlling the content, rather than having the main film be made for YouTube and being at constant risk of being banned.  A big part of the idea for the campaign site actually developed during the casting process, as I learnt so much from directing the young couples and we all fell in love with hearing their personal stories on condom use. That’s how we ended up recording the BTS interviews featured on the site that were later used by the attached influencers on their own platforms. 

What has been the public response to the film? 

People have been super supportive of the whole project, and I love that it’s starting to have its own little life and is spreading across the globe, mainly through social media. It’s awesome reading the comments, and to see people actually connecting with the film and what it’s trying to say. That’s definitely an amazing payoff for all of us after working on a more or less charity project for many months. I really hope that it will spark a conversation about the many advantages of using protection, personal responsibility and most importantly communicating in sex. We want everyone to be talking about condoms.

You've just signed to Pulse. What other projects do you have in the pipeline? 

One of the things that attracted me to Pulse Films is how they approach projects; Their openness to different formats is something I find very liberating. I think that’s actually super rare to find, and for a filmmaker like me who is always working across different platforms, this is a really exciting place to be.