Loony Porn: Radu Jude scoops top Berlinale prize with sex tape satire

Romanian director Radu Jude has won the award for Best Film at the 2021 Berlinale with Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, an irreverent feature about a leaked sex tape.

A bold, uncompromised satire that unfolds over three acts, the film follows a teacher in Bucharest as she is forced to confront the parents in her class following the release of a sex tape featuring her. Inspired by real events, the film, shot in the summer of 2020, reflects on our social hypocrisy and the digital realities we inhabit.

Jude received the accolade via videocall alongside the film’s producer, Ada Solomon. Jude’s first reaction upon hearing the news from the Berlinale’s Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian was simply: “Well, I don’t believe it.”

The jury praised the film for its “rare and essential quality of a lasting artwork. It challenges this present moment in cinema, shaking, with the same camera movement, our social and cinematic conventions. It is an elaborate film, as well as a wild one, clever and childish, geometrical and vibrant, imprecise in the best way. It attacks the spectator, evokes disagreement, but leaves no one within a safe distance,” they said.

Jude, who previously won the Silver Bear for Best Directing at Berlin with 2015’s Aferim! said that Germany had been a big influence on the film — largely thanks to the soft German porn that arrived in Romania via cable television in the 90s. He said he hoped to influence the German public in turn with Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn.