Erika Lust

Erika Lust (born 1977) is a Swedish erotic film director, screenwriter and producer. Alongside others such as Petra Joy and Anna Span, Lust has been instrumental in promoting the aims of the feminist pornography movement.[2] She has written several books. She lives and works in Barcelona.

Erika Lust
Born
Erika Hallqvist

1977 (age 4243)
EducationBA in Political Sciences, Lund University, 1999[1]
Occupation
  • Writer
  • director
  • producer
Years active2004–present

Her film Cabaret Desire won her the Feminist Porn Award for Movie of the Year in 2012. It also won the Cinekink Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative Feature. The first two compilations of her XConfessions series have won her the Feminist Porn Awards for Hottest Straight Vignette in 2014 and 2015 respectively. In 2015, A theatrical cut of XConfessions was screened at Chicago International Film Festival and at Raindance Film Festival in London.[3][4] Following that, in 2016, Lust held two sold out screenings of the XConfessions Theatrical Cut at Babylon in Berlin in February and won Best Narrative Short at the Cinekink Awards for short film An Appointment with My Master.

Background

Lust was born Erika Hallqvist in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1977.[5] She harboured a passion for film and theatre.[6]

She went to Lund University, where she studied Political Sciences. While there, she came across Linda Williams' 1989 book Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible", which later came to strongly influence her filmmaking. She also cites Jean Jacques Annaud's The Lover as a source of inspiration.[7] She graduated with a BA in 1999, with a specialization in human rights and feminism.[8] She moved to Barcelona in 2000, where she worked in production houses and took night courses in filmmaking.[7]

Career

Lust shot her first film, the explicit short The Good Girl, in 2004. It was released for free on the internet and downloaded over 2 million times in the first month.[9] The film was shown at the Barcelona International Erotic Film Festival the next year and won her a Ninfa Award.

In 2005, after this initial success, she founded her video production company Lust Films.[7] The company has produced erotic short films and compilations steadily from then on. Five Hot Stories For Her, an anthology of five vignettes including The Good Girl, won several international awards in 2007. Since then she has been a regular on the adult cinema festival circuit.

Lust's films are characterized by carefully cast actors and high standards of production in adult film. Lust believes explicit film can be an educational tool besides being pleasurable and can help us better understand our sexuality, to live more freely and naturally. She hopes to influence viewers' conceptions of gender roles in sexuality.[10] She considers pornography to be the "most important discourse on gender and sexuality".[7]

In 2010, Lust opened an online erotic cinema called Lust Cinema, exhibiting her own films and those of other authors of the new wave of explicit films.[7]

Lust started the first crowdsourced project in the history of adult cinema in 2013, calling it XConfessions.[7] It has become her main source of work in recent years.

She runs an online store offering her books and films, as well as sex toys and other erotic wares. Her company Lust Productions now has 12 employees. She also maintains a blog. She has written several books on eroticism and sexuality. Her book Good Porn was published in 2009 by Seal Press.[11] In December 2014, Lust hosted a TED-talk at TEDxVienna.[12] In the talk, entitled "It's Time For Porn To Change", Lust urges people to question the modern state of porn, its messages and role as a sexual educator. The TED talk launched the start of her campaign #changeporn, an online campaign intended to challenge and change the porn norm. The talk has been watched nearly 700,000 times on YouTube.[12]

XConfessions

Lust is currently producing short pornographic films based on crowd-sourced stories.[13] Viewers can leave anonymous confessions on the project's website. Each month, Lust handpicks two stories and turn them into cinematic short films. She has already published 21 volumes of XConfessions shorts. XConfessions has been presented at the Berlin Porn Festival 2014.[14][15] In 2015, a theatrical cut of XConfessions was screened along with a talk by Lust at the Raindance Film Festival in London and at the Chicago International Film Festival.[16][17] In 2016 Lust held two sold out screenings of the XConfessions Theatrical Cut at Babylon in Berlin in February and won Best Narrative Short at the Cinekink Awards New York for BDSM short film An Appointment with My Master.

Controversy

In 2018, the article "Is 'Feminist' Porn Getting Its #MeToo Moment?" was published by Tracy Clark-Flory for Jezebel.com. Clark-Flory interviewed a performer, Rooster, who claims to have had their sexual boundaries pushed by a director on set of a film being made for Erika Lust's XConfessions series. Erika Lust disputes the claims and responded with a statement on her website. The allegations led to the creation of the "Guest Directors Guide to Working With Performers" and a "Performer's Bill of Rights" by Erika Lust Films.

Selected filmography

Feature films

  • 2008: Barcelona Sex Project
  • 2010: Life Love Lust
  • 2011: Cabaret Desire
  • 2019: The Intern-A Summer of Lust

Compilations of shorts

  • 2007: Five Hot Sex Stories For Her incl. Something about Nadia
  • 2013: XConfessions vol. 1
  • 2014: XConfessions vol. 2 incl. The Art of Spanking
  • 2014: XConfessions vol. 3
  • 2015: XConfessions vol. 4
  • 2015: XConfessions vol. 5 incl. An Appointment with my Master
  • 2016: XConfessions vol. 6
  • 2016: XConfessions vol. 7
  • 2016: XConfessions vol. 8
  • 2017: XConfessions vol. 9
  • 2017: XConfessions vol. 10
  • 2017: XConfessions vol. 11
  • 2017: XConfessions vol. 12
  • 2018: XConfessions vol. 13
  • 2018: XConfessions vol. 14
  • 2018: XConfessions vol. 15
  • 2018: XConfessions vol. 16

Short films

  • 2004: The Good Girl
  • 2009: Handcuffs
  • 2010: Love Me Like You Hate Me (made with Venus O'Hara)
  • 2011: Room 33 (sequel to Handcuffs)

Books

  • 2009: X: a Woman's Guide to Good Porn
  • 2010: Erotic Bible to Europe
  • 2010: Love Me Like You Hate Me with Venus O'Hara
  • 2011: Shooting Sex: How to Make an Outstanding Sex Movie with Your Partner (ebook also available in polish) [18]
  • 2011: Six Female Voices with Antia Pagant
  • 2013: La Canción de Nora (Nora's Song)
  • 2013: Let's Make a Porno

Honours and awards

YearSponsoring OrganisationAwardCategoryEntryResult
2005Barcelona Intl Erotic Film FestivalNinfa AwardFirst Prize for Short X-FilmsThe Good GirlWon[19]
2007Barcelona Intl Erotic Film FestivalNinfa AwardBest ScreenplayFive Hot Stories for HerWon[20]
Venus Fair BerlinEroticline AwardBest Adult Film for WomenWon[21]
2008Good for Her TorontoFeminist Porn AwardMovie of the YearWon[22]
Cinekink New YorkCinekink AwardBest ShortSomething about NadiaHonorable Mention
Venus Fair BerlinEroticline AwardBest Erotic DocumentaryBarcelona Sex ProjectWon[23]
2009Good for Her TorontoFeminist Porn AwardMovie of the YearHonorable Mention
2010Cinekink New YorkCinekink AwardBest Experimental Short FilmHandcuffsWon[24]
Good for Her TorontoFeminist Porn AwardSexiest Short FilmWon[25]
2011Good for Her TorontoFeminist Porn AwardMovie of the YearLife Love LustWon[26]
Cinekink New YorkCinekink AwardBest ShortRoom 33Honorable Mention
Orgazmik ZürichOrgazmik AwardBest Film (Couples)Cabaret DesireWon[27]
2012Good for Her TorontoFeminist Porn AwardMovie of the YearWon[28]
Cinekink New YorkCinekink Audience Choice AwardBest Narrative FeatureWon[24]
Cupido NorwayCupido FilmprisHandcuffsWon[29]
2014Good for Her TorontoFeminist Porn AwardHottest Straight Vignette SeriesXConfessions vol. 1Won[30]
Fetisch Film Festival GermanyFetisch AwardBest Feature-LengthWon[31]
2015Good for Her TorontoFeminist Porn AwardThe Art of SpankingNominated[32]
Hottest Straight VignetteXConfessions vol. 2Won[33]
Websitexconfessions.comHonorable Mention[34]
2016 Cinekink New York Cinekink Awards Best Narrative Short Films An Appointment with my Master Won[35]

Notable Screenings

YearFestivalSubmission
2009Rated X AmsterdamBarcelona Sex Project
Circuito Off Film Festival VeniceHandcuffs
2012Erotikos Film Festival JamaicaCabaret Desire
2014Berlin Porn Film FestivalXConfessions vol. 1
Self Serve's Pornotopia Festival New Mexico[36]
Film Festival of Gender MexicoXConfessions vol. 2
Only Porn LyonXConfessions
2015La Fête du Slip Switzerland
Cinekink New YorkThe Art of Spanking
Raindance Film Festival LondonXConfessions
Chicago International Film FestivalXConfessions
2016 Babylon Berlin Premiere XConfessions Theatrical Cut
gollark: Merry new year, people for whom it is new year!
gollark: If they teach enough people maths, eventually someone is sure to figure it out!
gollark: So there's a magic metasystem for explaining the magic systems too? Madness.
gollark: *Stuff* and **THINGS**.
gollark: That's a shame.

References

  1. "It's time for porn to change l Erika Lust l TEDxVienna". Youtube. Retrieved 18 May 2015.
  2. Alilunas, Peter (10 Apr 2014). "The necessary future of adult media industries". Creative Industries Journal. 7 (1): 62–66. doi:10.1080/17510694.2014.892287.
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Retrieved 2016-04-07.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. "Erika Lust:XConfessions". Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Retrieved 2015-11-30.
  5. bobe.barsi (May 18, 2012). "Porn director Erika Lust: 'I Felt Uncomfortable Like All Women When They're Watching Porn'". Café Babel. Archived from the original on May 15, 2017. Retrieved May 14, 2017.
  6. McClure, Kelly (24 April 2012). "Erika Lust Is Occupying Feminist Porn". Vice. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  7. "About". Erika Lust. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  8. ""Erika Lust: European Entrepreneur, Pornographer,and Feminist" by Richard Moreland 2010" (PDF). Retrieved December 17, 2014.
  9. "Erika Lust Barcelona". B-Guided Barcelona. 4 September 2014. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  10. "Erika Lust: Changing the Porn We Watch". Liberator Unzipped. 2015-01-23. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  11. Lust, Erika. "Groundbreaking Books. By Women. For Women". Seal Press. Retrieved 2011-09-10.
  12. Erika Lust (December 3, 2014). "It's Time for Porn to Change" (Motion picture). YouTube.
  13. Erdmann, Nicola (2014-12-17). "Ich will eine andere Art Erwachsenenfilm machen, Die Welt, Nicola Erdmann". Die Welt.
  14. ""XCONFESSIONS von: Erika Lust" Screening". pornfilmfestivalberlin.de.
  15. "Pourquoi je continue à regarder du porno". Libération. 2014-12-15.
  16. "A Conversation with Erika Lust". Chicago International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08.
  17. "Erika Lust XConfessions". Raindance Film Festival. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08.
  18. "Jak nakręcić porno. Praktyczny poradnik filmowania seksu". Kinky Winky. Retrieved 12 January 2016.
  19. "FICEB 2005 Awards". Archived from the original on 2009-10-03.
  20. "The FICEB Ninfa, Tacón de Aguja and HeatGay Awards". Archived from the original on 2007-10-11.
  21. Schaffrath, Axel (2007-10-24). "Winners of the eLINE Awards and DAVIDs 2007" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-12-15. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
  22. "FPA 2008". Good For Her. Archived from the original on 2011-09-03. Retrieved 2011-09-10.
  23. "Die Gewinner des eLine Award 2008". German-adult-news.com. 2008-10-17. Archived from the original on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2011-09-10.
  24. "Awards". Cinekink. 2010-08-27. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  25. "FPA 2010". Good For Her. Archived from the original on 2011-09-03. Retrieved 2011-09-10.
  26. "2011 Good For Her Feminist Porn Award Winners". Good For Her. Archived from the original on 2011-12-04. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
  27. "Orgazmik Award 11". Orgazmik. Archived from the original on 22 March 2015. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  28. "Cabaret Desire". Feminist Porn Awards. 2012-12-22. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  29. "Erika Lusts "Handcuffs" vant Cupido Filmpris 2012". Cupido. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  30. "XConfessions". Feminist Porn Awards. 2014-10-15. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  31. "7. Fetisch Film Festival in Kiel". TraumGmbH. Archived from the original on 11 August 2015. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  32. "The Art of Spanking". Feminist Porn Awards. 2015-03-20. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  33. "XConfessions vol. 2". Feminist Porn Awards. 2015-03-20. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  34. "xconfessions.com". Feminist Porn Awards. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  35. CineKink. "cinekink". cinekink. Retrieved 2016-04-05.
  36. "Program". Pornotopia. Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center. Archived from the original on 20 May 2015. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
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