Danny Devero’s family disowned him a few years ago, when he decided not to participate in the Beijing games as an equestrian because he’d «have to subject the horse to cruel measures to compete at those levels». Their disappointment wasn’t due to his athletic career, however, but to his joining a Non-Governative Organization calledFFF, founded by fellow norseman Tommy Ellingsen. The group raises money for saving the Amazon rainforest, so the reaction may seem somewhat excessive… until you learn that the acronym stands for ‘Fuck for forest’, and that Ellingsen is a de facto sociopathic hippie whose fundraising is based on the sale of self-made amateur porn. Starring strangers randomly recruited on the street.
This is, at least, what transpires from the eponym Fuck for forest documentary, coming out next month after participating in film festivals worldwide.

You might remember FFF for their 2004 debut at the controversial Quart Festival, where two members of the group had public intercourse on stage, receiving a second fine when the man exposed his genitals before the court that was judging the misdemeanor. Or for the simulated intercourse during Mass in the Oslo cathedral in 2011.
What you probably didn’t know is that the group accumulated €420,000 through its stunts and the sale of the related merchandise – or that Ellingsen allegedly kidnapped one female member of FFF, or that according to their literature, one in ten citizen they approach accepts to appear in their porn shoots.

All of this and more is rather candidly discussed in the documentary, which paints a really unsettling impression of the organization. The debate for unhinibited living as a protest of urban living and the ecological catastrophes it causes sort of falls short when compared to the weird portrait of the FFF members… but the film is interesting in its peculiar ways.
If you can’t make it to the sparse (mostly in England) screenings you will be able to buy the documentary on DVD in June and contribute to the cause. Just remember: one of the most puzzling scenes shows the founding members finally reaching an Amazonian village and act as cultural heroes… until the villagers ask them what their actual plan for “saving the forest” is. This is when the Norwegians fall silent. They don’t really have one – and they are promptly chased away. But maybe they got their (lewd) act together now, who knows?