The Red Umbrella Film Festival (RUFF) runs from October 19 to October 22 in Dublin. As sex work is still hugely stigmatised, Hot Press interviewed the organisers collectively to protect and respect the efforts of everyone involved.

They explain that, “organising this festival as a collective means greater accessibility and participation, as not everyone is in a position or wants to out themselves as a sex worker. Unfortunately, doing this in 2023 Ireland could still result in losing your job, children, housing, etc. We want sex workers’ voices to be heard. By creating space for sex workers’ stories, we hope to challenge stigma and shame, and build towards a decriminalised future. Our goal is to create conversation and community around the issues sex workers face in Ireland and internationally through film.”

RUFF has held several events over the year in the lead-up to the festival, collaborating with GAZE on a screening in Pearse St. Library, as part of the Dublin Festival of History in September. While RUFF started as a hopeful idea, they are now we are sponsored by EdgeFund, Amnesty International, Unite the Union and Sex Workers Alliance Ireland.

“Support from the public both financially through our crowdfund and otherwise - has also been quite overwhelming and heartwarming,” say the organisers. “It’s really great to see so many positive responses. We want to harness this support moving forward and gain new allies in the struggle for decriminalisation and the end of the Nordic model in Ireland.”

The Nordic model of sex work law criminalises the buying of sex, pimping and some aspects of sex work. While it often claims to aim to protect sex workers, its critics say otherwise - and its critics not only include sex workers and organisations such as Global Network of Sex Work Projects, but also Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who all call for the decriminalisation of sex work. RUFF aims to highlight the importance of decriminalisation and expand the extremely limited representations of sex work that are often seen onscreen. Not only is Pretty Woman still the cultural touchstone for many people’s idea of sex work, but sex work is inevitably portrayed as deeply heteronormative - which is why RUFF’s collaboration with the GAZE Film Festival is also important, showing the complexity and sometimes queerness of sex work.

“Mainstream representations of sex work and sex workers in film, and elsewhere, virtually always rely on a female sex worker male client heteronormative stereotype,” say the organisers. “They portray sex workers as subjects without agency, passive and objectified - (non)qualities historically imposed on women - which in turn perpetuates the depiction of sex workers as lesser humans, by virtue of the patriarchy, and in more recent times, radical feminists.

“Our collaboration with GAZE last August was a beautiful possibility to showcase sex worker stories which subverted this narrative. The relationship between queerness and sex work is also interesting to consider within the parameters of work and understanding sex work as work, as labour. I might be a lesbian in my personal life, but see male clients at work, just like I might be a vegetarian but serve steak to a table while at work as a waitress.”

Some of the films RUFF is excited to screen include Fly In Power, a documentary exploring the work of Red Canary Song (RCS), a grassroots organisation of Asian and migrant sex workers and massage workers, and All The Beauty And The Bloodshed. The latter follows the life of activist and former sex worker, Nan Goldin, and her role in the campaign against the Sackler family, and will be presented in conjunction with a workshop on harm reduction. The festival will also be hosting panels and events, and RUFF organisers hope that attendees will have a fun and thought-provoking time that changes the narrative about sex work in Ireland.

“Somehow an entire demographic is grouped into a binary: the happy hooker on one side, in her contemporary rendition as OnlyFans model rolling in expensive handbags on Instagram; and on the other, the ‘prostituted woman’, a poor victim failing to understand her own predicament and in dire need of saving, a commodity for the rescue industry. Sex workers are mothers, daughters, brothers, friends, cashiers, university teachers, in addiction, in homelessness, in research.

“You might not see us, but we are everywhere. So perhaps this is what we would like people to think about: sex workers are as diverse as any demographic. We have rent to pay, children to feed, prescriptions to fill. We deserve to work without danger. You don’t have to agree with us - but we are people like you.

So get yourself to RUFF this October to learn, think - and have some fun.

“Talk to us, join a workshop, watch a film - you might even end up learning some pole moves or winning at stripper bingo!”

See redumbrellafilmfestival.com for all event details.