“PornStarForADay” Director Jordi Soler Is Spain’s Mad Smut Artist

Let’s take a visit to an underground “creative porn” studio and find out why they call “PornStar4ADay” director Jordi Soler Spain’s mad smut artist.

When someone sends you a photo of three roast chickens being stored in their refrigerator – what do you imagine? That there was a special at the grocery store and your friend is a big poultry connoisseur?

But if the photo comes from Jordi Soler, you kind of have to question what you know – and assume that somehow, those poor little chickens are getting fucked on camera.

So it was last week as I sat down to interview Soler, the sexy Spanish filmmaker behind the SmutVisualArt Project, an underground “creative porn” studio which has released several features that have been getting acclaim on the Internet. Soler’s feature PornStar4ADay is the first title by the studio added to Naked Sword Film Works, but surely not the last.

A raucous, raunchy spoof of the amateur casting porn genre, PornStar4ADay forces its porn star hopefuls to do some very silly and surprisingly sexy things in their pursuit of “stardom”. Soler’s films are molded in the vein of the “homopunk” genre which began in Europe in the early 2000s, famously popularized by homopunk.com.

In these films, actors put on crazy costumes and perform in ways mainstream porn would never dare allow. Soler’s films carry on this spirit, imbuing scenes with a positive energy and acceptance of different bodies and body types. Like Antonio Da Silva, Gustavo Vinaigre, and others, Soler is a bold new voice interested in reinventing what it means to consume porn in the modern age. We Skyped last week in the midst of him editing his “chicken movie.”

Jordi Soler: You are so handsome!

Adam Baran: Thank you, you too!

Yes, but it’s the first time I see you between a computer screen, and you had already the chance to see me in my film!

True. Jordi, what inspired you to start making porn?

I had worked in art for many years. I had a dance company, and in that company, we always talked about concepts involving changes in the new society - the Internet, social media, Skype, Facebook, etc. We talked a lot about how it’s so easy to expose yourself because you only need a camera and a star. The millennial generation started just showing more and more of themselves. Same with gay people. In the dance company we spoke about sexuality too, Grindr for example. On Grindr, I use you as my object and you use me as your object. It’s not love, just animalistic. Even now, you are semi-naked, we can start to do an interview or we can start to have sex. In Grindr or Planet Romeo I started to see that people liked to show their cocks, their bodies, etc, and so my first porn project was "Yo Exhibitionista" (I, Exhibitionist) because I wanted to use the guys I met on apps who were close to me.

So you used ideas your dance company was talking about and then decided to put them to practice for a porn which you sourced via social media?

Yes. Because with the dance company we use the choreography and the movement etc, but nothing was explicit sex. I didn’t want to do that with my dance company. I just wanted to take the concept farther and explore these ideas about media and sexuality. So I started this other project, the SmutVisualArt Project, about pornography. And I contacted the guys around me on Grindr to see if they wanted to do this project, and a lot of guys came to me. The other reason, because my pornography is not normal, so everyone who saw it said “Wow it’s cool, it’s different, I like it. It isn’t pornography, it’s art.” I think it’s art. But I also think it’s pornography. But it’s a pornography that doesn’t exist. The objective of my pornography is pleasure. It’s interesting to me that you come from a dance and choreography background because a few years ago I interviewed my friend Antonio DaSilva, who was making dance films and then started to make kind of creative artistic pornographic films using some of those same techniques. Most porn directors in the US and elsewhere don’t have a dance background. There’s such a strong sense of movement and dance in the films that you don’t see very much now because people just do the same camera movements and fucking positions. It’s true. I had this concept about the new generations and new media and the changing of society and how we are all becoming freer to expose our bodies. That was my first film, "Yo Exhibitionista". I shot for one day around 6 hours. But the most difficult work was after when I had to make the editing timeline and lay out the film. And that’s where my dance work came in, because if I use a long lens and fix the camera and don’t change it, the people watching the move would change it. So I used a lot of different elements for my first movie. Changing effects, music, different situations, expressions and communication via the performance. Of course on the set they do things that I want - my actors - but not always what I want. You connect things and tell a story and create a history by combining the images together.

You also use dance in your films.

Yes, because it’s a fetish. It’s my fetish. A naked guy dancing with a hard cock. My fetishes are dancers, strippers, go-go dancers because I was a performer in a disco and I am a dancer. Da Silva, he’s not a dancer, but he worked in an important dance institution in England. But he studied with filmmakers who do work about dance and he made one film about dancers and they move their cocks while dancing. I bought that film. But the difference between us is that I am making a history and Antonio is not. He’s just putting nice images together.

Are you saying that you are more telling fictional or fantasy stories? He is making documentaries and you are staging things and making fictional things.

Yes.

How does the influence of the Homopunk movement inform your films?

I was doing a search in Internet, Wikipedia, Google. The definition of “homopunk” in English is that it's a gay guy who’s a punk likes punk music, etc.

Yes but Homopunk as a pornography thing is more about crazy costume and movements.

This is my concept of homopunk. You are a cute crazy guy, maybe you’re kinky, but you are comfortable and natural. The sexuality is not taboo, it could be a carnival or a party you can use dolls, costumes, like a disco. Homopunk for me is these people. It’s not a stereotype, it doesn’t matter if I’m thin or fat or short or tall. The important thing is the energy. Sort of like an unabashed sexuality and I think what’s different from most pornography is that most of the mainstream gay pornography, the actors know what the moves are, the directors have it worked out, okay we have to get all these angles etc. It makes sense to me that you would give your actors the freedom to reject all that. Well but it’s not freedom. The actors have a script and direction. But it’s “in the moment.” They know that we’re doing a film and I want to see a lot of things that they have to do. It’s like, there’s a direction, and I’m saying what they have to do. But there is a moment of improvisation. If I say all the time do this do this do this, okay, but if the actor is spontaneous it could be interesting.

Let’s talk about PornStar4ADay, where did the idea for this project come from?

This is the film where the guys are most improvisational because it’s a party. When I work with 2 or 3 actors and I do the direction it’s easy. But with more people it’s more difficult. The idea came about because when I started to do this SmutVisualArt Project, a lot of guys sent images wanting to work with me, and I started to look at the porn stars around on the Internet. I never used Twitter but I saw that on Twitter, there were men that were older who were suddenly porn stars because of the Internet.

Yes, now there is Twitter and Only Fans and all these sites for you to expose yourself as a porn star.

Yes, and I start to receive letters from people who want to work with me and want to be a porn star. There are straight guys who come to me to do gay movies and think they are going to get a lot of money from it. They don’t know that if you are a porn star you’ll be an escort, and not make much from porn itself. You will get money but you have to have a lot of sex every day. If you do a film like a porn star or porn actor, you will use this material to promote yourself as an escort. This is the idea of PornStar4aDay - that if you are a porn star you have to work very hard every day. You have to stay on the computer, find a lot of guys. It’s difficult. It’s not that if you become a porn star you’ll make a lot of money. So we take the guys through the casting and callback and scene and it gets more difficult as it goes on.

Where do you come up with some of the very crazy ideas that people have to do in your films?

It’s all a fetish. Fetish. Fetish. Fetish. The idea is to have surprising situations. I think if I had someone fucking a roast chicken, for 20 minutes in the movie, people will turn it off. But if it’s 1-2-3 minutes it’s okay.

How does your life change over the past few years now that you make porno? Are all your friends trying to be in your porno? Or have you lost friends?

I didn’t change my name. Jordi Soler is my real name. I’m a real artist. I’m working in porn. I don’t do art porn, I do creative porn. I was just thinking, why do I have to change my name if I started with my name fifteen years ago? Now all these people want to work with me for free. But I don’t want to collaborate with other people because I don’t want someone else to change my ideas.

Do you watch your porn to jerk off? Or what do you want to watch to jerk off?

I love guys in Bel Ami, but I don’t like when they are fucking. When it’s solos or photoshoots that I like. Some of the orgies are okay.     PornStar4ADay is fun, fresh and very filthy. Trust us, you’ve never seen anything quite like it!" [Watch "PornStarForADay" at NakedSword Film Works]     Explore all of films selected for NakedSword Film Works (NSFW).