Erika Lust

Erika Lust is a Swedish feminist porn director, screenwriter and producer. Alongside others such as Petra Joy and Anna Span, Lust has been instrumental in promoting the aims of the feminist pornography movement. She has written several books. She lives and works in Barcelona.

Her film Cabaret Desire won her the Feminist Porn Award for Movie of the Year in 2012. It also won the Cinekink Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative Feature. The first two compilations of her XConfessions series have won her the Feminist Porn Awards for Hottest Straight Vignette in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

Background

Lust was born Erika Hallqvist in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1977. She harboured a passion for film and theatre.

She went to Lund University, where she studied Political Sciences. While there, she came across Linda Williams' 1989 book Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible", which later came to strongly influence her filmmaking. She also cites Jean Jacques Annaud's The Lover as a source of inspiration. She graduated with a BA in 1999, with a specialization in human rights and feminism. She moved to Barcelona in 2000, where she worked in production houses and took night courses in filmmaking.