BARCELONA — Adult filmmaker Erika Lust is relaunching LustCinema as a brand new U.S. studio, and is currently working with top American performers Casey Calvert and Michael Vegas on “The Intern: A Summer of Lust,” her first directorial project for the new venture.
From the Barcelona set of “The Intern,” Lust and her team shared details of the relaunch with XBIZ.
“LustCinema will launch in September to become the porn studio for lovers of cinema and sex,” said the company’s press contact Andrea Ponce. “The new U.S. studio will offer its audience cinematic, plot-driven original series and feature films with relatable storylines that lead to realistic situations of sex and where sexual encounters are part of a wider narrative.”
LustCinema has recruited “relevant, U.S.-based female filmmakers” and assigned them a top-level budget with instructions to “show and capture the whole feeling of sex — the passion and the pleasure — while performers will be focused on each other instead of posing for the camera. On LustCinema, as it should be in real life, everyone's pleasure is equally important.”
“I have been turning sex stories and secret desires and fantasies confessed by the public into short films for five years now,” said Lust. “I’m amazed at the creative hub that XConfessions has become, and with 200,000 members we have proven that there is a space and a market for a more aesthetically appealing alternative.”
Lust says she has decided “to put my money where my mouth is and I want to relaunch LustCinema as a brand new U.S. studio. I want to bring my style of pornography to the L.A scene by investing money in U.S. productions and giving work to more female filmmakers and performers. There are several established female filmmakers who are craving a space for creativity, artistry and innovation. They want to excite both people’s minds and bodies, and inspire them to realize and pursue their own pleasures and I’m happy to be able to work with them.”
An 'Alternative' to Mainstream Porn
Production for LustCinema began in April with five projects, by adult directors Dana Vespoli, Nica Noelle and Madison Young, all shot in L.A. and San Francisco with a diverse cast including Daisy Ducati, Silvia Saige, Magdalene St. Michaels, Vera King, Michael Vegas, Stirling Cooper, Angela White, Seth Gamble, Siouxsie Q, Michael DelRay, TommyPistol, Demi Sutra and many others.
“During her career,” stressed Ponce, “Erika has offered an alternative to mainstream porn by reflecting her views on sex as a healthy, natural part of life worth celebrating, representing the emotions around sex, treating men and women as equally important sexual collaborators and focusing on female pleasure and their sexual agency.”
LustCinema studio manager Nica Noelle said she was thrilled to be included in the project. “It really feels like a Cinderella story for me,” says Noelle, “in the sense that I was suddenly given a magical opportunity to do what I've always wanted to do.”
Noelle is especially thankful for Lust’s instruction “to blend genres within a story and bring gay, trans and straight performers together in a single film without labeling or fetishizing anyone,” something she describes as unusual given the more rigid categories in mainstream U.S. porn.
Erika Lust’s first feature film for LustCinema, “The Intern: A Summer of Lust” is currently shooting in Barcelona. Besides Calvert and Vegas, the film also features Lena Anderson, Berlin-based indie performers Bishop Black and Paulita Pappel and Barcelona-based Kali Sudhra.
An extra BTS treat will be a chance to see the Erika Lust offices and some of its real employees. “I thought it would be fun for the audience to get a sneak peek of where and how the Lust Team works,” said Lust.
“The movie tells the story of Maddie, a sheltered American girl from a conservative family who moves to Barcelona to do an internship at the Lust offices and discovers all the possibilities of a summer in Barcelona,” the director added.
“When I first saw Lena Anderson, I knew she was the perfect person to play Maddie. Casey Calvert will play Maddie’s older sister, the uptight English Literature teacher who flies to Barcelona to look for her sister when she goes missing and find out exactly what she’s been up to. Casey has very good acting skills, and she has a lot of dialogue in this film, so I really wanted to work with her.”
Through Calvert’s character, explained Lust, “the viewer learns about Maddie’s experiences in Barcelona and she also goes through her own journey of self-discovery. Michael Vegas as Maddie’s roommate was a very obvious choice for me. He had already worked with Casey and he is such a good actor.”
The new LustCinema is set to launch in September with the release of “The Intern” alongside several other original series and feature films by Vespoli, Noelle, Young and Kay Brandt. Several new productions will be shot in the U.S. in upcoming months.
