The first two episodes of this "offbeat creation" of Canal +, which has eight from 9 to 17 minutes, were unveiled in preview at the Canneseries festival, before a broadcast "at the end of May at the beginning of June", announced its author during a a masterclass.

We follow Romain (Jérémy Gillet, seen in "Mytho"), a sociology student who, at the end of the 90s, began a career in porn.

Thinking of finding a way to emancipation, this 18-year-old rebel discovers an environment that is ultimately "ordinary" and finds himself a victim of his sudden notoriety.

"Porn is social suicide", explains Ovidie, former actress and director of X movies. "It's been 22 years since it concerns me anymore and people still ask me questions about it".

Like the short film that preceded it in 2020, "A very ordinary day", the series is based on a "principle of inversion of genres and power relations", relates this holder of a doctorate in letters and author. documentaries, comics, podcasts or even an animated web series for Arte on feminist and intimate issues.

Romain, whose father has stopped working to raise his children, thus discovers an X industry run by women, is ogled "by a granny on the bus" or lives in a toxic relationship with an older woman.

A permutation supposed to "create a slight feeling of unease, which leads us to question ourselves", according to Ovidie.

“If I had chosen an 18-year-old female character in a relationship with a 32-year-old guy who is a young teacher, we would hardly have raised it, whereas there it goes less”.

No need to "represent violence" on the screen.

"The banality of sexism is enough in itself".

And the one "that Romain meets on porn sets is exactly the same as with his parents, his teachers, his partner", insists Ovidie to AFP.

"Not an autofiction"

"Exacerbated reflection of what is happening in society in general", the porn industry is for her poorly represented in the audiovisual sector, "always off the mark", from the film "Boogie Nights" to the documentary "Hot Girls Wanted " through the "Hard" series.

"It feels like walking through a human zoo."

Inspired by real stories, his series offers a "situated point of view", if not an "autofiction", despite common points between Romain and Ovidie, who got into porn during his philosophy studies.

She thus prefers to show, rather than a "facial ejaculation", an "exhausted director who makes corporate films on the side", embodied by Romane Bohringer, or "technicians who are there to work their hours".

French actress Romane Bohringer at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, May 20, 2019 CHRISTOPHE SIMON AFP/Archives

"That's why there is not a single sex scene", apart from one in the intimacy of the couple of Romain.

A "performance" for a series talking about porn, at a time when sex is "absolutely everywhere in our cultural environment", concedes the former follower of pro-sex feminism.

This political movement, which advocates "the fight for the rights of sex workers and the production of counter-images in response to sexist pornographic images", has "much less meaning today" than when it was created "at the very beginning of the 80s", says Ovidie.

Having become a "feminist period", the young quadra does not "personally watch the series with ass", such as "Euphoria" or "Sex Education", even if "Pam and Tommy", Disney + series on the sextape stolen from Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee in the 90s, "made him laugh".

Does she plan to explore other areas than "the politicization of the intimate" in the future?

"No. It is better to remain constant. It is a subject which is inexhaustible, as long as there will be sexism, and even more since MeToo. The day when it will be exhausted it will be the moment to retire with my dogs".

© 2022 AFP