Category Archives: Alternative Porn
Celebrate your E-spot!
“We are all part of, not separate from, nature. Thus all sex is ecosex!”
(Annie Sprinkle & Elizabeth M. Stephens)
Earth Day has been and gone and many people were not even aware of it. We live on this amazing planet and take from it what we want, yet we do not protect, cherish or nurture it.
The longer I live, the more I love earth in all its breath-taking beauty, boundless variety, creative abundance and sensual richness. Time I spend in nature is time I feel most alive, happy and free. So I spend more and more time in woodlands, meadows and the sea.
I do what I can to celebrate and protect the planet and am happy to see that there is an exciting sexual movement that is gaining more and more momentum: It’s called Ecosex, and it is fronted by the brilliant feminist sexual activists Annie Sprinkle and her wife Elizabeth M. Stephens. Annie is a good friend of mine and is on a similar journey to me. She has had an amazing career of self discovery, sexual exploration and creative expression. She is an artist, sexologist and activist who has been promoting free sexual and feminism all her life. A while back she has begun to discover, embrace and live eco-sexuality, declaring along with an ever -growing global community of eco-sexuals in their Ecosex Manifesto:
“The earth is our lover. We make love with the earth through our senses. We are skinny dippers, sun worshippers and stargazers. We are very dirty. We celebrate our E-spots! We treat the earth with kindness, love and affection…”
I think this idea is beautiful and it really resonates with me.
I’ve always thought that it can’t be a coincidence that so many people involved with sexual liberation and feminism are also passionate about environmentalism and animal rights: it shows a deep, humanitarian way of engaging with the world, the ability to think and love freely, as well as the desire to engage with, support and protect everyone and everything around us. We all are one and connected in many ways.
After all, what good are our human rights if we don’t care about the rights of other creatures? And what good are our freedoms if we allow our precious planet to be polluted, exploited and abused until one day it will be completely wrecked? All natural resources are running frighteningly low and time is running out.
That’s why I love Annie’s idea of re-connecting emotionally and sensually with the world around us. Sexuality can be a deep and spiritual experience, and I think uniting ourselves with the earth and with nature while we explore is an exciting and relevant idea. We can also use our sexuality to protest against the abuse of planet earth and promote its protection. If these ideas appeal to you too then you’re in luck, because the first International Ecosex Symposium is this year, and will be in the UK, France and Spain (Germany to be confirmed). It looks like there’s going to be an amazing line up of workshops, talks and fun, earthy activities. You can have a look at the programme and complete Ecosex Manifesto here. I love how inclusive, creative and fun it looks. And knowing Annie and Beth I am certain that the event will be inspirational and deeply enriching for all involved.
If you can’t wait for this summer’s events, would like to help saving pockets of nature and are daring enough to have sex on camera, you might want to contribute your video to Fuck For Forest. Fuck For Forest is an erotic, non-profit ecological organization that gives its members access to erotic photos and videos for donations that will be spent on projects protecting nature. Any film Fuck For Forest shoots or publishes is based on authentic erotic adventures of its supporters living out their sexuality freely in nature and for nature. The founders say:
“Sex is often shown to attract us to buy all kind of bullshit products and ideas, so why not for a good cause? Saving the planet IS sexy! Why not get horny for a good cause? It makes it easier for you and me to stay positive in an already too suppressed world. Now porn is healing! So let’s all get horny by nature, and give some LOVE back to our planet.”
You can support Fuck For Forest by donating money, becoming members and donating photos and videos. The group has recently been featured in a documentary that did not approve of the founders and members unconventional approach to political protest, porn production and fund raising. I have nothing but respect for the filmmakers and performers who have the guts to put their sex where their mouth is so to speak. Their porn films are sexy, subversive and politically provocative – check them out!
There are many ways to love the planet and discover your e-spots! As Annie and Beth say:
“Viva La Ecosex Revolution! Join us.”
The Petra Joy Awards 2012
After the success of the first Petra Joy Awards in 2009, it took me some time to run this short film competition for new female erotic filmmakers again. I lost my previous sponsor and was not able to find another one. Various companies offered to donate some goods in exchange for their branding plastered all over the awards, but no one was willing to donate the prize money.
Because this award is so important to me I did not want to give up. So I decided to put my money where my mouth is and to save up the prize money for the winning films of the new competition over a couple of years. I remembered how in 2004 my life changed completely when Emma, a woman I met on an erotic photo shoot commission, decided to pay for the postproduction of Sexual Sushi so it could finally be released. Without Emma’s help maybe Sexual Sushi would have never been published and I might not have had the guts or finance to ever shoot another erotic film. Emma’s direct action of investing some money into me changed my life forever. I will be eternally grateful to her and felt the wish to give to other women what she gave to me. Now I want to inspire other women to make their dreams come true, express their fantasies and believe in themselves.
The results of this short film competition under the topic of “Female Fantasies” are fantastic: No subject is taboo. Yes, some women enjoy paying a man for sex! Yes, some women enjoy being dominated in a consensual SM scenario! Yes, many women would love to hang out in the dark room of a gay club to watch the men get it on. Yes, most of us like to be licked by a lover with a skilled tongue (illustrated beautifully in the animation Naked Love by Sara Koppel). Our sexuality is as multi-coloured as a rainbow.
The positive reactions I got from the winners of this year’s awards have been overwhelming. All of the women felt honoured to win and it meant the world to them to have their work recognised and to be encouraged to continue their creative journey.
Morgana, who won the first prize for her gutsy autobiographic film “Duty Bound” in which she shows us how she left a loveless marriage behind and made her fantasies come true, wrote to me:
“When I first read your website and PJ Awards site, I had this immediate sense, that you were my kindred spirit, urging me to unshackle my past and giving me permission to release this voice within me, that has been just below the surface my entire life, screaming to be heard. Duty Bound was conceived. Winning the PJ Award and the most incredible response to the film has left me in surreal state. With this win, I hope to meet other like-minded, non-judgmental people that believe and positively engage with and promote women and their sexuality.”
To receive an email like that touches me deeply. How wonderful that my short film competition was the catalyst for Morgana to shoot her film. Even better that the first prize has encouraged her to shoot more films in the future. This makes me happy. Much happier than if I had spent the money I had saved up on myself rather than donated it as prize money for the awards. Sometimes to give really means to receive!
Morgana closed her mail to me with the following lines:
“I can feel myself wanting to get up and dance, as I hear, Annie Lennox & Aretha Franklin sing:
Sisters are doing it for themselves,
Standing on their own two feet,
And ringing on their own bells…”
I am singing along to this – ever since the eighties this is one of the sisterhood anthems I love because it celebrates female independence as well as friendships between women. And it feels like through this year’s award new friendships and creative partnerships are blossoming.
It was a pleasure to see that two of the winning films, Corpuscle (by: Exotica Loom) and Taken (by: Gala Vanting and Aven Frey who have now set up sensatefilms.com) were created by two women working together as a team. Sisters are not just doing it, but doing it together… More and more creative partnerships in expressing female sexuality on film are formed all over the world and I think this is wonderful. We prove the sexist stereotypes about female competitiveness wrong.
Another trend in female erotic filmmaking seems to be that indeed it is hot hot hot down under: This year’s first prize, Duty Bound, as well as the runner up Taken, have been produced in Australia. The legal restrictions on producing and distributing porn in Australia seem to have the opposite effect of what the government intended: female-made porn seems to be thriving right now. There is an ever-growing community who shoot porn and especially Melbourne seems a hotspot for alternative erotica. Oz is of course the country that brought us great VOD sites like beautiful agony and many women who previously performed on these sites have now taken the camera into their own hands to shoot films about sex.
Already the winning filmmakers are hooking up, planning to shoot new films together and you never know, I might be on my way to sunny Melbourne next year too to co-operate with Gala, Aven and Morgana. How wonderful that we are connected across continents and generations. Together we grow. Together we can change the world. Word by word. Image by image.
You can read more about the filmmakers and see clips from the awarded films here.
My biggest Sex Organ
I am often asked what I mean when I say “my biggest sex organ is between my ears and not between my legs”. What I mean is that if my mind is turned on, my body will follow and will be more tuned into lust than if just my body had been stimulated. And for my mind to be turned on, I love it if I see something that allows me to fantasise. Less is more. I like filling in the gaps.
This is why I love to see faces during orgasm rather than brightly-lit extreme close ups of genitals. This is why I love the Australian streaming site Beautiful Agony and the film “Faces of Orgasm” by Marianna Beck – it just shows people’s faces whilst they get progressively turned on and eventually orgasm. And no it is not just many women that enjoy to visually be turned on in a subtle way, a lot of men like it too… Watch and decide for yourself if you think this video of a woman giving in to pleasure I just came across is hot hot hot:
More info on this clip can be found here.
Happy Birthday Jungsheft!
I want to congratulate the fab Nicole and Elke who have just published their 10th edition of JUNGSHEFT – an alternative porn magazine for women.
The editors’ journey started five years ago, round about the same time that I launched my erotic film production. Elke and Nicole wanted to create a magazine that shows sexy photos of the guy next door – stripped naked and with erect cocks. Their subjects are not oiled-up, beefcake style models but normal, unpretentious, sexually liberated guys who volunteer to be shot for the female viewing pleasure. JUNGSHEFT also features lots of editorial on topics that are taboo in mainstream women’s magazine such as strap-on sex or trush.
The magazine has cult status in Germany and is only available via an online subscription or in select few progressive cafes and hairdressers in Cologne. What makes the magazine so special is that it does not feature any adverts and is truly independent. Elke and Nicole had offers to go big with the magazine but that would have meant lots of compromises and ultimately selling out. I think this is something that many women working in erotica have in common: they do it for their own creative pleasure and to bring joy to other women and rather than being motivated by profit margins.
So the magazine stayed small and beautiful. JUNGSHEFT is by and for women, a genuine alternative to the overload of glossy women’s mags that tell us how to please men and sell us crap that we don’t need. Recently the editorial team has also added the “Giddyheft” – alt porn for guys or girls who like chicks, featuring the woman next door – guaranteed air-brush free. Even though the magazines are not available in English, I think anyone who likes alt porn could enjoy the booklets – for their great erotic photos alone.
The magazines always need women and men to take their clothes off for the camera, so if you fancy a sexy adventure, apply!
More info: jungsheft.de
Erotic art for the blind
A little while ago I started collecting erotic art by women.
I am the proud owner of some Annie Sprinkle tit prints and my bedroom walls are covered with artwork from Georgie Tier. So I was really excited when I found out about an erotic photo book for the visually impaired and blind by the Canadian artist Lisa Murphy.
tactile mind is a handmade thermoform book consisting of 17 3-D tactile photographs on white plastic pages with a photo and descriptive Braille text accompaniment. A book that you can see purely by feeling it, allowing you to fill in any gaps of an image or to create a complete story with whatever images your mind creates.
I thought: What ground-breaking work. Not just to photograph your friends in the nude but to then make 3D representations of these stills so that the images could be felt by everyone, especially people who cannot see is a ground-breaking project. Chapeau to Lisa! So I had to order a limited edition copy of tactile mind for my art collection.
My favourite 3D image is on the cover of the book – a beautiful representation of a vagina. I have ordered this page as an extra item to get it framed as I always enjoy artwork that celebrates the female sex.
The reactions to the tactile mind have been mixed – a lot of the conservative media have been slagging the book off quoting blind people who said that they do not want ‘porn for the blind’. What a shame that the (blind) people who were interviewed had never seen or felt Lisa’s book but made judgements based on the journalist’s descriptions.
It always baffles me when people are so quick to judge and condemn rather than applaud pioneering work. I always think – if you do not like what you see why don’t you make your own or at least be supportive of people who try something new? It takes courage to journey onto the road less travelled…And especially for women who are taught to play it safe, it is great when they decide to take risks and express themselves freely, particularly in a sexual arena.
I am really intrigued by this unique hand-crafted book – part photography, part sculpture, part image descriptions written in Braille. So I contacted Lisa to congratulate her on her exciting work and ask her a few questions on her controversial book.
This is what Lisa told me:
Interview with Lisa Murphy:
What inspired you to create ‘tactile mind’?
I wanted to do the book for a challenge – I had the knowledge (from getting my certificate in Tactile Graphics and volunteering for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind) and I wanted to apply this to my own work of nudes. All my friends, sighted, vision impaired and blind all thought it was a fun wacky idea, so I went from there.
What is the message of your book?
tactile mind is a book of my photographs for blind and vision impaired readers. Internationally; I think this book has sent out the message that more books for vision impaired and blind people are needed in the world, and even on a deeper note – that people have their own opinions regardless of their abilities or disabilities. This reflects from a sexual standpoint as well.
Why are all the models masked?
The models are masked for a couple of reasons. 1. I love making masks -( I am a big Halloween junkie.) 2. it’s much easier for me to convince someone to have their photo taken in front of a camera with nothing on if they are anonymous .3. Tactually, I thought it would be more interesting for the pictures to be read – instead of a standard head shape throughout the entire book.
Why are there no explicit images say for example of an erect penis or penetration?
There are no explicit images because the shoots just didn’t go there. These subjects are also my friends. It was a really beautiful experience to take personal shots of people, who were so trusting of me, and be allowed to use their photograph for a third party to “see”. Very much a combined effort.
What is your definition of porn?
My definition of porn is penetration with yourself, another person, a couple of other people, but captured with instruments or electronics. But even my opinion on that is loose. Sex is a beautiful thing – we all came from somewhere. I don’t see my book as pornographic. It has been called many names – “erotic”, “sensual” , “original art”, “fetish – oriented”, ‘porn”, and some people don’t like it at all.
Why did you chose to use the medium of text only to describe the pictures rather than to tell a story?
The Braille describes the pictures rather than “tells a story” because the story for this book is the pictures. It is a book of my real photographs for the blind and vision impaired. Looking back, to write stories with the images,- I am not much of a writer – and I wanted to create a piece that was real (non-fiction) which this is.
How has your artwork been received?
The artwork has been received with a very mixed response. People don’t understand why a naked woman has a square head, but if they saw the photograph or read the braille, and realized it was a real picture, they might understand the artwork a bit more. A lot of people who do not like this work have never seen it or touched it. Very few copies are out in the world, so I am not sure what they are basing their opinions on. At least people are interested in it, regardless if they decide to like it or not. I think it is great that there is dialogue in the world about a book.
Are you going to do further erotic art projects using the techniques applied in the book?
I am currently thinking up/ working on my next project. Not sure exactly what it will be, or what materials I might use, but it should be interesting.
More info on Lisa and her book: www.tactilemindbook.
Silver Sex
“Before I turn 67 – next March – I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.”
This ad was published in a literature journal by language teacher Jane Juska – a woman in her late sixties who reclaimed her body and rediscovered her sexuality without taboos and then wrote a book about her adventures.
What a joy it was when I recently discovered her book “A Round-Heeled Woman”. It was refreshing, exciting and inspiring to read about her sexual adventures – some of them with men in their eighties some with men in their thirties. Sexual chemistry knows no age – sparks can fly any time when a young mind in an old body is attracted to an old mind in a young body or vice versa.
Jane is a woman who, based on common perception, is ‘past it’ and is not supposed to have a sex life any longer. MILFS are cool and sexy, grandmothers allegedly ‘disgusting’. There are so many taboos in sex and porn – age is just one of them. Porn likes to turn silver sex into a grotesque spectacle: People, especially women over 50 having sex are being portrayed as unattractive ‘freaks’ in countless low budget gonzo films. Attractive young women and men are being ‘punished’ by having to fuck someone with wrinkles and grey hair. People reduced to their bodies and in the case of old bodies to worthless meat – past the ‘sell by date’.
What a shame. This is why I was really excited when I heard about “Cloud Nine” a German/French art-house film featuring explicit silver sex. The film features a strong heroine who is bored in her dull marriage and starts having a passionate affair with another man. I applaud the director for his guts to show real sex between older people. But I was dissapointed because the sex they had was very limited (hardly any oral, no toys or lube but mainly missionairy quickies when many woman over sixty have told me about the kegel exercisers, toy selection and huge repertoire of pleasurable sex techniques). What upset me most about the film is that it all ends in tears: The heroine leaves her husband to be with her lover. The husband then promply kills himself and the woman is then trapped in her grief and gut-wrenching guilt. Why is it that in so many art-house movies that feature explicit sex, there is drama, depression and death – as if the protagonists have to pay for daring to make their sexual fantasies come true? This is why Jane Juska’s book is so inspiring and uplifting – even though some of her lovers have the power to upset her, the book ends on a high when she heads off to meet her 30 year old lover in a log cabin and both look really forward to a romantic and kinky reunion – against all odds.
I like a challenge and maybe one day – perhaps when I am in my sixties – I will shoot a really exciting and erotic silver porn.
Green Porn For The New Millennium
After the disappointment at the Copenhagen Summit 2009, many people around the world are full of fire to make change. There are so many battles to fight: women’s rights, rehabilitation for Haiti, and of course, taking care of Mother Earth.
Lately, I’ve uncovered a few gems (ethically mined, of course!) from people who are doing great things by combining a green conscience and sexuality.
The first you may have seen: Isabella Rossellini’s “Green Porno.” These short films (featuring Rossellini in a number of creative animal costumes) show the wild and wonderful world of animal sex on land and under the sea. Did you know that anchovies mate in large orgies; shrimp strip down as foreplay; starfish can do it two different ways; and whales fight to make love? Kinky, kinky creatures! “Green Porno” makes it so hilariously clear that sex is a playful, creative and sometimes bizarre ritual, no matter what kind of creature you are: Watch it on YouTube.
I wanted to promote “Green Porno” in my Her Porn series, by featuring at least one of the fantastic clips by a female director, but the Sundance Channel who commissioned the films politely declined. The division between the arty filmmakers and filmmakers who proudly make ‘alt porn’ still holds strong, even when you have a similar-minded product. Porn has a lot of stigma still attached to it and it is time that this changes for good. “Green Porno” has now been released as a book with video by Harper Collins. You can find the details here.
Second, is feminist porn icon Annie Sprinkle and her wife Elizabeth Stephens who are pioneering the eco-sexual movement. They believe that “if more people experienced the Earth as their lover instead of thinking of the her as their mother, it would make for a more mutually beneficial and sustainable relationship.” The Love Art Lab project is one aspect of this movement. As the website www.LoveArtLab.com states:
“The Love Art Laboratory grew out of our response to the violence of war, the anti-gay marriage movement, and our prevailing culture of greed. Our projects are symbolic gestures intended to help make the world a more tolerant, sustainable, and peaceful place. … We are ecosexual sexecologists who have vowed to love, honor, and cherish the Earth, Sky and Sea ’til death brings us closer together forever.” I had the pleasure to shoot Annie and Beth’s wedding to the sky in Oxford last summer – check out the clip below:
Last but not least are the lovely Norwegians who founded the non-profit organization Fuck for Forest. Yes, it is pretty much as it sounds. Partners Tommy and Leona were feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world and wondered what they could do to help. Merging their passions for forests and the great outdoors with their passion for great sex, FFF “…wishes to normalize sex and nudity to protect nature and liberate life. We collect money for ecology while exploring the power of sexuality.” They urge you to sexualize your revolution. A donation grants you access to their website of Tommy, Leona and countless other fucking and masturbating players from festivals around the world to the parks and bedrooms of Berlin and the forests of their native Norway. At present, they support two projects. In the first, they work with Arbofilia in Costa Rica to help protect an area close to Carrara National Park. The area is called “FFF Wild Climax Refuge.” The second is a reforestation project in Ecuador with the Shuar tribe that will also result in the building of a cultural center for exchange of knowledge about natural balance, medicine plants, and shamanism. I love how these very different project explore similar themes of one-ness, acceptance, and activism. I hope to feature a clip from FFF in “Her Porn Volume Three” – my favourite is when Leona shaves her pussy as much as the percentage of rainforest that has been cut down and then masturbates with a fun factory worm dildo.
I can’t wait to meet Leona soon in Berlin and hope to support their great work by making their sensual eco-activism better known and inspire more people to take action of your own!
Looking back with gratitude and ahead with joy
It has been an amazing year for women’s porn. I am happy I could contribute in various ways to what feels like the breakthrough of the genre in Europe. I am particularly proud of publishing the first ever feminist porn compilation “Her Porn, volume 1” which has been a huge success. Throughout curating this exciting compilation many fantastic friendships with fellow filmmakers were born.
I am grateful to count the accomplished queen of women’s porn Candida Royalle, the creative grand mistress of “porn noir” Maria Beatty and the inspiring Marianna Beck as my friends.
A personal milestone has been to work my way through 150 hours of behind the scenes footage shot during the last three years, to create my very personal documentary “The Joy of Porn” which premiered at the pornfilmfest in Berlin. It felt good to look back and realise how far you can go when you believe in your dreams and do everything you can to make them come true. But this is not just about me, my friends and performers in my films and our dreams and fantasies as 2009 was the year I started to actively mentor new female filmmakers with the “Petra Joy Award”. I would like to thank all the amazing women that did submit their erotic films to my first ever award for new filmmakers and congratulate the talented winners! It has been a pleasure getting to know you and with the support of my sponsor pjur encourage you to make more erotica from a female perspective.
It also feels good to become more actively involved in the distribution of alternative porn and help fellow female filmmakers to get their films sold and seen in Europe. I am distributing Marianna Becks’ film “Free Love” (U.S. Title was “Urban Friction) about the adventure to enjoy an open relationship. As of now “Dirty Diaries”, a feminist porn compilation from Sweden is also distributed by me in all German speaking countries and I feel honoured that the producers trust me with getting this exciting project out there.
The sisterhood is getting bigger and stronger – we are a force to be reckoned with. Not only do we inspire and support each other as filmmakers but are using our contacts as business women to actually build up an alternative distribution network that spans the world. Rather than letting men in suits decide if our films make it to the shops we sell them to the shops ourselves. I would like to use this opportunity to thank Candida Royalle for distributing my film “Feeling it!” for me in America.
Not only do women network and distribute each other’s work, we also started to celebrate our creative achievements. This year the first feminist porn award of Europe, PORYES happened in Europe and it was a special event for me as I was honoured alongside other filmmakers that I count to be my friends: Candida Royalle, Maria Beatty, Annie Sprinkle and Shine Louise Houston.
On a personal note, my dwarf rabbits had really cute and fluffy babies this year, so it was an all round fertile year!
I look forward with joy and excitement to 2010: With the input of more up- and coming female erotic filmmakers, I will publish “Her Porn, volume2”. I look forward to my presentations and workshops that I will give in Valencia and Vienna (so far). With the help of a sponsor I hope to run another erotic short film competition and award more talented first time female filmmakers. The topic and prizes should be announced soon – keep an eye on: www.joyawards.com
If all goes well I will also shoot at least one new film – finances permitting. What it is about is a surprise. After having been featured on three prime time TV programmes in Germany, many women and men applied to star in my films – so it will be exciting to cast some new faces for a film. I am buzzing with ideas.
I also hope to have a two week holiday for the first time in three years some time in 2010. And as I now have a personal assistant, the lovely Saskia I hope this will happen. It is lovely to see the team grow and work with people who share my vision. I would like to say thank you to my fab graphic designer Ray, my editor Paul and my webmaster Tony. Well done, guys – we like men that support female sexual liberation and porn by and for women!
Thank you all for supporting me by reading my blog, writing to me, buying my films or co-operating with me creatively! It is for you that I do what I do and it makes it all worthwhile to feel appreciated.
I hope the peaceful Christmas magic will reach you very soon and wish you an exciting and erotic, happy and healthy and successful 2010. Enjoy!
Light at the end of the tunnel
Since Berlin, I’ve been flooded with press inquiries and have been running through the footage I shot there, including the Petra Joy Awards. I have been viewing and editing non-stop. So I have had no time to share my adventures in this blog until now but you can now view videos of my time in Berlin. The videos will take you behind the scenes and show you the wild and wonderful journey that took place that week. The videos are available on my YouTube channel right now.
Following the success of Her Porn Volume 1, I’m busy curating the second volume. Seeking out fellow feminist porn filmmakers is always a treat, and this installment promises to deliver another set of dynamic videos and amazing directors. Some of the filmmakers include Anna Brownfield from Australia with her fab indie film “The Band”, all of the winners of the Petra Joy Awards, Samantha Linton from Canada with “Man Of My Dreams” and many, many more. Most of the featured filmmakers are previously unpublished in Europe. The target release date is March 2010. If you haven’t seen Her Porn Volume 1, you can find it here.
I’m proud to announce that the Swedes are coming! I’m branching further out into distribution with “Dirty Diaries” (2009), a new Swedish feminist porn compilation made by women for women. I think Dirty Diaries will be a porno classic. Of course, it’s exciting to become a representative for other female directors. Distribution is a key issue – without it you can’t sell your films, make production costs back and finance more films. It took me almost two years until my first film “Sexual Sushi” got into the shops. Five years down the line I now have good contacts to buyers especially in the German-speaking countries. I am proud to be able to provide a service to up-and-coming female filmmakers that I wish were available to me when I was starting out. Like I trust Candida Royalle with the distribution of my film “Feeling it” in the States, Mia Engberg and the Swedish Film Institute are trusting me to exclusively distribute this work in German-speaking countries.
Mia found 12 female filmmakers to shoot what they felt was a feminist porno on their mobile phone cameras, and the result is exciting and inspirational. For couples and women, this is a treasure chest of erotic creativity, individuality, and variety. This release is a great way to get to know fresh, talented females who are sharing their erotic fantasies – without shame. The film will be available soon from my online shop. If you are interested in further information or placing an order, don’t hesitate to contact me at petra@petrajoy.com. Find out more about the “Dirty Diaries” at www.dirtydiaries.se.
I know it’s not yet December, but today I’ve taken the time to put my Christmas decorations up. As I have been flat out the last few months working 12 hour days and most Saturdays, I needed something to remind me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I have only had 2 weeks of holidays in the last 24 months. The Christmas tree is my daily reminder that I just have to push through another few weeks before I can take a breathe and enjoy the holiday: a girls’ night-in with champagne in front of the open fireplace and a candle-lit hot tub session with my boyfriend – I long for all of that and more.
The mad rush towards Christmas is on. I hope you, like me, have a special reminder that there’s a holiday filled with warmth, love and joy just a few weeks away.
And the winners are…
After 4 months of trials and tribulations surrounding the Petra Joy Award (I will not bore you with the details with the many of what went wrong), the four winners have been awarded and celebrated in Berlin in the sold-out Movimento cinema. We had many amazing submissions from all over the world and the jury discussed long and hard about whom should win the prizes because all films were special in their own way.
The winners are Louise Lush (First Prize), Lola Clavo (Second Prize), Linsey Satterthwaite (Third Prize) and Cora Emens (Special Jury Award).
Even though the creative style of the films varied there were some similarities in the films: One prevailing element of many films was the expression of what women want in bed: The first and third prize (“That’s what I like” and “I like it when”) both expressed visually and verbally what turns some women on. The common message is: the shame is over – women can now talk freely in public about what they desire sexually by making a film about female sexual pleasure. Some of the filmmakers such as Linsey Satterthwaite and Cora Emens decided not just to direct but also star in their films – an experience that both women perceived as extremely empowering.
The winner of the second prize, Lola Clavo portrayed sex and love as a power struggle in her experimental film “La Lucha” – with subtly blurred images and an impressive sound-scape.
The special jury award went to “Cora’s memoir – the rose” for the fearless and fun depiction of a very personal erotic memory of the film’s director who also starred in her movie. In an ageist society the film shows that a pleasurable and joyful sex life for women does exist for women who are aged 50 plus.
Before we set off to the cinema for the screening of the films and the award ceremony, I threw a mini party for all the winners and their partners and the girls had their make-up done by a pro. I like the icing on the cake and the cherry on top, so I decided last minute that I would hire a stretch limo for the girls as a surprise and take them around Berlin and to the cinema in style.
It was such an amazing feeling when we got into the limo to drink champagne and toast each other – a spirit of sisterhood and women getting together to celebrate their sexuality and sharing their vision with the world rather than hiding away. I hope that for the winners as well as me this will be a night to remember.
It was a fantastic buzz when we arrived at the cinema there was so many people and so much press everywhere – but it stressed me a bit that there were so many cameras. This was a very personal event for me and I wanted the people who bought tickets and the filmmakers themselves to enjoy it in a relaxed manner…I did not know who most of the cameras belonged to and was worried that people will perceive the event as a media circus when it was meant as a revolutionary grass roots event celebrating and supporting new female talent. It was bad enough that due to a legal battle with a German magazine that had copyrighted the term “Joy” I had to rename my award into the “Petra Joy Award” which drew more attention to me than I am comfortable with. I did this competition so that the focus is on new emerging talent. It is about the joy of giving , passing something on to other women rather than just publishing my very own vision over and over again.
To me this evening was the highlight of my ‘career’ as an erotic filmmaker. Five years ago I set out to make my first film with a bunch of friends and one camera in my bedroom – a few award-winning films, one book, film compilation, documentary and many workshops later I am finally able to pass the batton on to the next generation of female erotic filmmakers. I am really proud that I was able to inspire these women and hope to be a catalyst for many more films that are being made. It is a great feeling that the genre ‘porn for women’ will continue to exist in Europe – even if I never did never shoot another film. We have done it – women are finding their visual language and expressing all their different fantasies on film. I am so glad I made my dreams come true and hope many women will do the same. Walt Disney used to say: “If you can dream it, you can do it!”; I say: “If you can dream it, you can shoot it!”.
All winning films will be published on my forthcoming compilation “Her Porn, volume2”. Out in Spring 2010. You can read more about the winners and their films, as well as viewing clips of the winners, at www.joyawards.com
PS: After I said at the event that I now want to focus on another matter close to me heart: the environment, rather than just and exclusively on ‘porn for women’, the rumour mill went into overdrive that this was my good-bye and I will never ever shoot another erotic film. This is not true. I would love to shoot another erotic film and hope to be able to finance it. But there are so many other talented women creating porn for women right now that it is OK for me to diversify which missions I use my talents for!
Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank all submitting filmmakers, my sponsor pjur and the pornfilmfest Berlin for being our host.