X-Off, Private’s hot new director, discusses Evil Geishas Hotel, his eclectic influences, his fresh approach to making porno, and his upcoming projects.

What first attracted you to porno? What did you do before?

I’ve worked as director for some years in fiction, music videos and advertisement. The world of porno fascinated me for the possibility to reinventing a genre: porn movies have a fixed language, some very well-coded and known rules. My challenge is to make something different from the usual, but still very horny. I’m working for a revolution of language that can maintain the quality of the excitement.

How did you get involved with Private? What was the first thing you saw by them?

Private is known worldwide, among professionals, as a big enterprise that makes hardcore products of high quality. And it has by its side an amazing distribution. For this reason, for someone like me – beginner in the world of porno – Private was a guarantee. I can say more, Private was the top!

Thanks to my participation to Ficeb 2006, where Erste Klasse was nominated as best porn short, I could propose myself to the top. And now I’m here!

What do you like about shooting porno?
I love cinema and porno is a kind of cinema where you see everything, where you see things that usually you can’t see in regular movies. If cinema is dream, porno is a detailed one, so near to reality that looks like you can touch it. (a big smile)

On set I enjoy the grotesque atmosphere that, as a troupe, we breathe in sex scenes. In front of our eyes, some nice people (and amazing girls!) make something so intimate and personal… and you can see they believe it, they are so serious performing while all around, the troupe goes on working. The contrast is really nice.

Evil Geishas has a different feel to it. None of the predictable patterns (BJ-sex-anal-facial). What is your approach to shooting porno?

I’m telling a story, first. The narrative facet is very important so every sex scene is connected to the context where it develops… My intention is to have something pornographically complete but not predictable. As good sex in life!

Very nice choice of actresses for the film. What was your criteria for choosing them?

I tried to have both conventional and non-conventional beauties in the movie. Beyond the choice, I always have the intention of discovering an actress as well as the sex performer, so I take a good care of their comprehension of the script and of their acting.

The whole look and feel of the movie is very cinematic. How did you shoot it? What kind of equipment did you use?

Technically we shoot in the digital format with a tool called PSTechnik that gives us the chance to use film lenses. This helped a lot to give that feel.

But the real secret is not technical, it’s human. I’m working with a large crew of great professionals. We take a lot of care with the photography, we use live-recorded sound, we have an amazing art department that makes miracles with make up, costumes and set design.

There are lots of original fetish concepts in this. Where do you get your ideas from?

In porno I can liberate my obsessions. I can express freely and directly a creative talent that I trained for years in commercial, fiction and other kinds of productions.

What about the creative process. The music, the screenplay, etc. How involved are you?

I’m involved completely. My effort in every movie is to combine every piece to give to the product a unique style.

Which filmmakers inspire you? Why?

I admire especially David Lynch, David Cronenberg and Lars Von Trier. The three have the ability to play with the codes of cinema, and in their stories they often mix fear and desire (basic ingredients of my erotica).

How would you classify this movie within the porn genres?

Absolutely new one!

Is it possible to make a crossover porno film? Something that is both artistic and pornographic?

It’s the result I try to achieve and that I think we have reached with Evil Geishas Hotel.

Being a mix of different European nationalities, what influences do you bring? And, what do you see as the differences between European and American porno?

I don’t belong to any local context, I’ve grown up moving around, and I can say I’m still moving. Of course this has helped me to have a liberated perspective, a way of seeing things that hasn’t been bound to anything fixed and preconceived.

In good and bad features that they [European and American porn] both have, I can say that in my humble opinion European cinema tries to address to everyone. American one only refer to itself.

What is your next project?

My next project will be another Private product. I’m preparing a story of bloody families where women are desperate and strong: Mafia Girlz.

Interview conducted on May 30, 2007

Evil Geishas Hotel is coming out in July.

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