Awarded porn director plans to shoot film in Iceland. On the lookout for local talent.
“I’m not searching for professional actors. It could be someone with experience or without it. Just someone who is comfortable with being filmed,” says Spanish director Lola Clavo who is currently looking to hire actors for a new erotic movie to be shot in Iceland. “My only real condition,” she adds ,”is that the performers identify as queer.”
Lola has already been scouting locations for the film. She says that it’s important that they’re both appealing and sensual to the performers. “It’s always nicer if the performers are doing something they like, in a place they find sexy, with partners they really like,” she explains and adds that she finds Icelandic landscape really breathtaking. “Both it and the light, it’s the most amazing thing, obviously everything is very beautiful, but the light… especially at night is just something very, very special. Iceland has really inspired my erotic writing.”
This is Lola’s first trip to Iceland. She originally came here because of another project, the Turtle Film Festival, which is an emerging film festival taking place in Hólmavík town between August 10th to 16th. “I’m one of the artists in residence at the festival where I’m working on two projects at the moment,” she says. “One is about the festival, a mix between a documentary and fiction, where I need locals from Hólmavík to participate. And the other is more in the spirit of what I do, the before mentioned project which has to do with pornography in art and erotic films.”
Your work has been called a queer feminist perspective on porn, what does that entitle?
“Well usually other people categorize my work. For example some have described it as post-porn. Others say it’s feminist porn, something which hadn’t crossed my mind untill people started using the term to describe it. But then when I won PorYes, the feminist porn movie award, in 2013, that’s when I thought to myself: “Okay, so that’s what it must be. For me, I think the two are related. Because they’re both about sexuality, body and intimacy.”
“It’s always nicer if the performers are doing something they like, in a place they find sexy, with partners they really like.”
But making porn, doesn’t that go against feminism?
“No, because there are many kinds of feminism and I don’t agree with all of them. I am a pro-sex feminist. The post-porn movement is partly about that, about stop criticising porn, because if you don’t like it, just make your own!”
So what’s the difference between your films and other erotica/porn?
“The main difference is that my movies are not made to arouse people and they are not made to make money, they are not commercial, they go beyond, are more artistic,” Lola answers. “My movies are more about content.”
“While mainstream porn is unfortunately far from presenting reality. The bodies are all the same, the scenes are all the same. The erotic and porn industry is just business, concerned with making money, not educating. And I think it’s doing a lot of harm. Especially to the younger generations. Because many learn about sex from watching it.”
So mainstream porn is giving kids the wrong idea about sex? About how to behave and what to expect?
“Porn is fiction and I think it’s really dangerous when people think that porn films are documentaries about sex. It’s important to educate people and say: “Listen, this is a movie. If you see a movie with someone being killed it does not mean he’s really dead. So when you see porn it doesn’t mean your sex life has to be like it.”
“There’s usually no affection or love in porn and I am against that because I think sex and love go together. I try to show that in my films.”
- A woman must have played a significant role in the film’s production (as a writer, producer or director), and the film must challenge stereotypes in mainstream porn for it to qualify as feminist pornography.
- Proponents of the genre say that feminist porn films feature performers of many different races, shapes, proclivities, and ages, and that directors ask women what they most like to do.In mainstream porn, the performers don’t have any say in the matter.
- According to the proponents, both characteristics qualify these films as “feminist,” because having choice
and agency is an important component of feminism. - Feminist pornography must also depict women experiencing genuine sexual pleasure.
- Some feminist porn movies look like art-house movies, rather than mainstream porn.
- Critics of the genre claim that it’s nonetheless exploitative, since it still manages to treat women as sexual objects.
- The PorYes campaign is carried by those in the women’s movement who reject all forms of dehumanization but strongly believe in the power of positive sexual images nonetheless.
Source: The Daily Beast, April 21, 2012.
Main photo: A still from the short film Corpuscle by Exotica Loom, an art collective that Lola has along with the artist Mariana Echeverri.