BUENOS AIRES — Pioneering Argentinian adult director Victor Maytland passed away on Wednesday. He was 75.
Maytland suffered a stroke last year, and had recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Local reports unanimously characterized Maytland as “the emblematic figure of Argentine porn cinema” and “el pionero” (the pioneer).
"Despite being legal since 1984, Argentine adult cinema had very few well-known directors until him," award-winning mainstream producer and film historian Axel Kuschevatzky told XBIZ. "Maytland was a maverick, someone constantly swimming against the tide of everything that was happening in the country. He made spoofs, porn reality shows, hired John Wayne Bobbitt as an emcee and created even hardcore talent competitions. His eclectic career has no equivalent in the region."
Speaking with Argentine newspaper Infobae, performer and friend Lorena Mexy described Maytland as “a brilliant person” and said the director, with whom she worked for a long time, passed away peacefully, surrounded by friends and relatives.
A Towering Figure in a Complicated Local Industry
Maytland started out in the early 1970s as a politically committed filmmaker, and under his birth name, Roberto Sena, was part of the Grupo Cine Liberación movement. He worked alongside noted Argentine arthouse (Fernando “Pino” Solanas) and commercial (Armando Bó) filmmakers, and also had an extensive career behind the scenes on popular TV shows.
Maytland single-handedly attempted to kickstart the commercial Argentine porn industry in the 1990s with now-cult parody titles “Los Pinjapiedras” (a “Flintstones” spoof) and “Las Tortugas Pinjas” (a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” takeoff).
With around 150 titles to his credit, Maytland also developed erotic reality TV show “Expedición Sex” (2001), a staple of Argentina’s signature XXX cable channel Afrodita. In 2007, Maytland was hired by Los Angeles-based CineXlatino to develop pioneering Spanish language tube sites Cine 69 (straight content), Puticlub (trans) and Latin Puppies (gay).
“I never got rich with porn,” he told Infobae during a career retrospective interview in the 2010s, “but I made good money for a while. Today, nobody can make money out of porn over here. Which Argentine person would pay a peso to watch porno? I did all I could, and people refuse to pay. You can’t change people’s daily habits.”
“I’m tired of giving it away. You wanna watch one of my movies?” he asked his audience with resignation. “Buy it. It’s simple.”
