The Forbidden Collection is a love letter to the golden age of erotica — and it’s everything
There are people who stumble across something extraordinary and think, huh, neat. And then there are people like Jimmy Pantera.
A few years ago, while navigating the winding underground of Brussels’ counterculture, Pantera found himself face-to-face with an incredible archive of photographs and film posters from adult cinema. He immediately recognised what he was looking at: the remnants of the Cinéma ABC — standing for Art, Beauty, Comfort — a genuine Brussels institution that functioned as the city’s temple of adult entertainment for decades, until its closure in 2014.
The last of its kind. Gone, but clearly not forgotten.
What was Cinéma ABC, exactly?
Think of the spaces that existed in New York, Paris, Berlin — the cinemas and clubs that served as refuges for alternative and divergent sexualities at a time when mainstream culture had no room for them. The ABC was Brussels’ version of that. A place where people could simply be, outside the judgement of polite society.
It was kitschy. It was transgressive. It was, by all accounts, utterly irreplaceable.
And now, thanks to Pantera’s obsessive archival instincts, its legacy is being preserved in The Forbidden Collection — a book that chronicles the golden age of erotic-pornographic cinema from the 1960s through the 1980s, told through the lens of one extraordinary place.
I’m talking photographs plastered with stickers to dodge censorship, cult films, genuine rarities, erotic stars and anonymous figures alike. It is, by every possible measure, wild, funny, kitschy, sensual, colourful, and completely irresistible — essential reading for anyone who cares about the history of adult cinema, counterculture spaces, or just gorgeous, chaotic ephemera.
Pre-orders are live right now on both Ulule and Kickstarter, with a stack of cool extras depending on which you choose. Delivery is slated for this summer.
And there’s more: Candice Candy / L’Enlèvement des Sabines on Bluray
If The Forbidden Collection is the main event, consider this the perfect double bill.
Pierre Unia was a pioneer of French pornography — someone who approached the genre with genuine freshness and naturalism from the moment it was legalised in 1975. Two of his greatest works, Candice Candy (1975) and L’Enlèvement des Sabines (1976), are getting their first proper release since the VHS era — both uncut, both on a single Blu-ray, both restored from the original negatives by the excellent people at Mélusine / Vinegar Syndrome.
The cast reads like a who’s who of early French adult cinema’s golden age: Béatrice Harnois, Claudine Beccarie, Sylvia Bourdon, Véronique Maugarsky, Danièle Troger, and others. And the films come loaded with extras.
But here’s the detail that’ll really get you: both films feature original scores by Laurent Voulzy — yes, the famous French singer-composer, who was friends with Unia at the time and even turns up in a memorable cameo in L’Enlèvement des Sabines. Efforts to get those soundtracks released on vinyl are apparently ongoing. Fingers crossed on that one. In the meantime, watching the films is the next best thing.
One more thing worth knowing: the slipcover with spot varnish is free through April, after which it returns to its standard €25 price. So if you’ve been sitting on this, now is genuinely the time to move.
The Bottom Line
This is exactly the kind of project that deserves to exist. The Forbidden Collection isn’t exploitation or nostalgia for its own sake — it’s genuine cultural archaeology, preserving the memory of a space that mattered to real people, and celebrating a chapter of cinema history that mainstream culture has largely ignored.
Get in while the pre-order goodies are still available. Your shelf will thank you.
