Drei Ratschläge an Dein 14jähriges Ich!

I got the advice from everybody, from my teachers, from the school, from my parents to study because everybody just told me “You are too good you need to study,” theatre is something that you will not probably be able to live on and then I did study and I learned a lot and it was challenging and it was super interesting but what happened I think was that years after I went back to those roots, I went back to that passion that I actually had when I was a teenager because I wanted to work with actors and I wanted to work with theatre. I wanted to work with film. So maybe advice would be to listen to your heart and not listening too much to everybody around you because maybe they don’t have the same vision as you have.

Was steht auf Deiner Visitenkarte?

Erika Lust, erotic film director.

Was ist das coolste an Deinem Job?

But you know I love being on a set, I love shooting, I love the power and the magic of film making and I love when you go for example to a festival, the time after you shot a movie and you sit down and you see your movie on the big screen and it is just such a pleasure to see that job that you did.

Welche Einschränkungen bringt Dein Job mit sich?

I guess the limitations in my job is that how I am treating with adult business, I am doing explicit films, even if for me the film making is very, very important and the level, the visual level, the cinematic value of my films is super important. They are still adult movies and some people they still have problems with the adult, the spectre of it. And I do understand the association with the word, porn, smart, dirt, low culture. But for me it was a career as a film maker I wanted to pursue. Not as a pornographer.

Worum geht es in Deinem Job?

I do erotic films and the company is mine. I created the company in 2004 so it is turning 10 years now. At my office I do of course check all my emails, I check the numbers on my sites online because I have a few different online properties, I few different websites that I am running. One is xconfessions.com, that is my latest project where people are sending in their confessions, their erotic confessions. Then I have another site called lustcinema.com where I gather a lot of different films from this new wave of adult cinema from different creators and directors and then I have an online store called Erik Lust store. Well, when I create a film it all starts with an idea, of course. For me the ideas are very important because it is the basic thing that we are working out from. So I sit down and I think about what should I do and then it is the creative script write process where, we are throwing ideas, you know we are looking at how should we really create this film, who are the main characters, why are they meeting, in what circumstances, in what locations. And then the process goes on and the other people in my production team comes in. I also of course do castings in my job because I need actors for my films. In the casting process I look for people that are different, that have a special personality, that are sex positive, that love being in front of the camera. I look for people that doesn’t look like they are typical porn stars.

Wie sieht Dein Werdegang aus?

So my background, I am Swedish from Stockholm. I studied Political Science and Gender Studies and then years after university I moved down to Barcelona where my life changed. I was working in the audiovisual industry as a production manager for quite many years and a location manager. And then I created my own company in 2004 and at the beginning it was just a very small company and I was making a film every two years and I was still working as a freelancer for other companies. But since 2008 more or less I can live on my own company and that’s something that I am very, very proud of really.

Ginge es auch ohne Deinem Werdegang?

In terms of film production I think that I am from a generation that really grew up with such level of audiovisual quality that we all have this audiovisual mind kind of. But then of course if you want to work in the film industry get some education as always, learn how it, how the process really works, how are you making a movie. But also I think it is very important to learn more about the business side of it because I have the feeling that many people that want to work in film they are creative people and they know a lot about the shooting process, about the camera, they know about the script writing and they have many, many ideas but they have absolutely no clue how to make a business out of those ideas. So I would recommend you to get some business studies.