US-Dutch filmmaker Muriel d’Ansembourg made a bit of a splash with her short Fuck-a-Fan (Tribeca 2024), which looked at the porn industry through a playful female gaze. The director has now debuted in the Berlinale’s Perspectives with her first feature, Truly Naked, a tender and eminently zeitgeisty coming-of-age love story set against the backdrop of the same industry.

Alec (Northern Irish first-timer Caolán O'Gorman, who seems a shoo-in as the next Paul Mescal) is a college boy in England, who helps his father, Dylan (Welsh actor Andrew Howard), in his homemade porn productions. Dad performs and produces, while Alec films and edits. When the kid is paired up with classmate Nina (promising Safiya Benaddi, another debutante), the daughter of a feminist life coach, for an assignment on porn addiction, the stage is set for a psychological, emotional and societal rollercoaster of an unorthodox boy-meets-girl story.

There is such palpable chemistry between the two young actors from the moment their eyes lock that there is no doubt in the viewer’s mind what will follow, but the path there leads through a minefield of preconceptions, insecurities and practical issues, most of all the fact that Dylan and Alec make their movies at home, with Lizzie (real-life porn actress Alessa Savage, returning from Fuck-a-Fan in a refreshingly bright role) and another girl being the regular cast.

The father-son relationship initially seems relatively harmonious, but Alec’s inner world and relationship with Nina definitely suffer from the fraught psychology that such a family set-up carries. The late mum, whom Dylan sanctifies, was also a porn performer, and it is not much of a surprise when the boy makes a huge faux pas in his first physical interaction with the girl.

The delicate topic is handled by d’Ansembourg with the most careful of touches, and O’Gorman and Benaddi make for a fantastic acting pairing. Their charisma and likeability partly overcome some unfortunate declamatory elements in the director’s screenplay, and there are plenty of dramaturgical peaks that always keep the viewer engaged and emotionally involved.

Besides Alec getting into trouble with a school bully, there is an unexpectedly funny fight scene between the father and the son that turns rawly emotional, plus another extremely uncomfortable one, when Dylan ventures out of the “regular porn” field in an attempt to increase viewership. But the film is as gentle as it is fully explicit, and this may be d’Ansembourg’s biggest achievement: to look at the topic from all angles without judgement, and make it clear that sex is fun and fulfilling, and that porn is not going anywhere – but that society has to be honest about it in order for it to hurt the fewest people possible. This is hard to expect but is certainly a goal worth striving for, and Truly Naked can work as a great conversation starter.

The gentleness of the approach is evident in every technical aspect, from DoP Myrthe Mosterman’s perceptive, often handheld camerawork to Emiel Nuninga’s light-handed but firmly convincing editing, and the electronic music score by Evgueni and Sacha Galperine, which cleverly plays with sensuality and romance. The backdrop of English seaside cliffs, soft natural light and a desaturated colour palette make two key scenes between Alec and Nina stand out emotionally in contrast with the interiors.

Truly Naked was produced by Amsterdam-based Isabella Films, and co-produced by Belgium’s Prime Time BVBA and France’s Cinéma Defacto and Ici et Là Productions. Germany’s m-appeal has the international rights.