Paris, FRANCE – May 3, 2022 – Dorcel, the major international player in pleasure for all, is proud to continue promoting the feminist porn movement by signing an exclusive VOD distribution partnership with Spanish director and producer
Paulita Pappel, founder of the
HardWerk production studio (
HardWerk.com) with
Rod Wyler, co-director of the Hardwerk releases.
Involved in Berlin’s queer feminist community for more than a decade, Pappel has been an advocate for a positive culture of sex and consent, and addresses societal taboos about sexuality through her productions.
Dorcel is now the exclusive VOD distributor in Europe, the United States, Canada and Africa, excluding the web, of HardWerk films. Founded in 2020, the HardWerk studio presents multi-person sex scenes from a feminist perspective with highly polished cinematography.
“At HardWerk, we choose our collaborators and partners carefully,” said Pappel. “We want to work with companies and people who fit our philosophy and purpose. That’s why we’re thrilled to work with Dorcel, an established and worldwide recognized brand that stands for quality films and fair production standards. We are confident that our productions are in good hands.”
Paulita Pappel was born in 1987 in Madrid and has lived in Berlin since 2005. She shot her first scenes as a performer in 2010, for Erika Lust. She created the couples-friendly platform Lustery.com in 2016 and began directing and producing her own videos. She quickly became a luminary of the alternative porn scene and Berlin’s feminist queer community. She founded the studio HardWerk (HardWerk.com) in 2020.
In the mainstream, Pappel is an intimacy coordinator for major studios, and has been a programmer and curator for the Porn Film Festival Berlin since 2013.
A brief interview with Paulita Pappel for dissemination is below. To arrange a full interview with her please contact Daniel Metcalf at DLM@aeonfortyeight.com or call (818) 266-7910.
For more information, visit dorcel.com.
AN INTERVIEW WITH PAULITA PAPPEL
My name is Paulita Pappel, I’m 34 years old, I’m originally from Spain but I’ve been living in Berlin for the last 17 years. I’m a porn producer and director. I used to work as a performer. I’m also a curator for the Porn Film Festival Berlin. I founded the platform Lustery.com and together with my partner Rod Wyler, I run the studio HardWerk.com.
What attracted you to porn when you started as a performer?
It was both a personal and a political decision. I always thought of porn as an expression of sexuality. I was interested in entering this space to explore my own sexuality away from societal conventions that tell you to have sex only for love or for reproduction, especially as a woman. Politically, I wanted to create visibility for different bodies and sexualities and promote a public dialogue around sex.
When and why did you decide to make your own films? And to create your own studio? Why was this important to you?
As a performer, I was part of a low-budget film scene in Berlin, where we all organically helped each other out with different projects. From the beginning, coming from a feminist queer background, I understood porn as a medium that could be used from a different perspective: it was a lot about reclaiming our bodies, the image of our sex. And you can only control representation if you own the means of production. I started to take more roles behind the camera, organizing and coordinating, and soon I was doing casting and producing. I wanted to expand our reach, and somehow I became a porn entrepreneur, I guess. Creating my own studio felt like the right step to prove myself and my ideas.
Do you consider what you are making feminist porn?
I consider myself a feminist, I’ve always been a feminist and I’m still today, but the way I understand porn and the sex industry has changed. I used to think that porn was generally bad, then I thought feminist porn was good but still mainstream porn was bad. Finally, I understood that this is just a prejudice that is based on a sexist view of women’s sexuality and it only reproduces the stigma against porn and sex work. Even though I think one should be critical of all industries and always question how standards and products can be improved, anything that reinforces the idea that ‘mainstream porn is bad’ is harming all of us. That’s why now I’m a bit more cautious about labeling my porn feminist. Because journalists love to present the dichotomy between feminist and mainstream porn, and that just doesn’t challenge the status quo. And it is just not a vision of the porn industry I share. I am a sex worker and I’m in solidarity with the whole sex work industry. I refuse to put barriers between me and the rest of the industry.
How would you define it?
I would say that in the porn that I do, I aim to offer an experience that encompasses different layers. A lot of porn focuses on stimulating a very basic instinct or sexual stimulus, there’s nothing wrong with that but I want to create productions that appeal to and challenge the viewer aesthetically as well, visually and sound-wise. I want to provide an experience that is more than the pure sexual excitement, an experience more embedded in aesthetics … but not necessarily artistic (although it can be) but it’s about a different full experience that acknowledges the viewer as a participant, not a merely passive observer.
What are the characteristics of your films?
I would hope that you could see a certain cinematic quality to it, through the way they are shot, edited and post-produced. And I always want to create a feeling of celebration. My films don’t carry feelings of shame or guilt. They come with a feeling of the pure joy of sexuality. And I aim to represent different perspectives.
And compared to other directors like Erika Lust?
I admire Erika Lust, she’s somebody I can look up to. I applaud her work and all her achievements. Working with her has been really inspiring and empowering. I would say that my vision might be a little more hardcore, more explicit, kinkier. Erika‘s work is maybe more accessible to people that haven’t watched porn before.
Do you think that the rise of female directors and ethics will change the future of adult cinema in the next few years?
Yes, I definitely think so. Porn plays a key role in the development of sexuality in our society. It is very important that it is diverse and shows different perspectives. And therefore, it’s very important that not only heterosexual men do it but also heterosexual women, lesbians, queer, non-binary folks, and BIPOC folks. I think the more diverse the directors and producers are, the more diversity we’re gonna be seeing in the porn that is produced. Porn needs to evolve in order to reach out to different people and reflect all kinds of human sexuality, so it will become more mainstream, but in a good way. If we want to take a space in the society, women and others folks who are not CIS white heterosexual males need to have more power, need to be creating more. I really like what’s happening now.
Do you think that the #MeToo movement changed something in our society?
I think the #MeToo movement has been crucial in pushing for change in our society and I feel blessed that I’ve lived in a time that saw this movement thrive, that has been creating real political and cultural change. The impact goes deep into the private lives of people. As well of course in porn, if you consider this industry as a mirror of our society, the #MeToo movement has had an impact. I know that there was a consciousness about consent before this movement, I had a lot of conversations about consent, communication, and what it means to have consensual sexual intercourse long before this conversation was taking place in mainstream society. I hope the #MeToo movement can bring this conversation further, I think people can learn a lot from sex workers.
And finally, what does it mean to you to work with a company like Dorcel?
I’m really happy and honored to work with Dorcel. Until now we’ve been working with smaller, more niche platforms. One of the reasons I’m happy to work with Dorcel is that I wanted to make sure that if I’d work with a bigger company, our vision, our understanding of porn would be the same. I had a lot of conversations with the group content manager and I really feel at ease. I respect their values and the way they approach and handle porn. I also feel they really understand what I’m doing: I had conversations with other distributors and they were like, ‘Oh yeah, what you doing is great but take the gay stuff out, and make the scenes two hours long!’ They said it wouldn’t sell. With Dorcel, I can discuss anything, we’re on the same level. Of course, they are free to tell me that some of my work is unusual for porn or that people can be irritated with some content, but still we can have a proper conversation about it and this is what I love about Dorcel: they like quality, they appreciate it, they care for the product and they’re ethical.
About Dorcel
In four decades, Dorcel has become a major player in providing pleasure for all. Currently present in more than 75 countries as the benchmark brand for chic sexual pleasure, Dorcel enables everyone to please and be pleased sexually in a free and positive way. The French company is committed to ethical and responsible adult pleasure including the protection of minors and personal data. Dorcel’s customers around the world fantasize about sexual pleasure via its productions, TV channels, and high-end VOD services, as well as sex toys, manufactured and distributed by its network of physical stores as well as its websites. A major innovator in sexual pleasure with VOD, its concept store, virtual reality (VR), and podcasts, Dorcel is at the forefront of technology in the service of pleasure.
For all additional information, please contact:
Camille Clouvel – Communication and PR manager
camille.clouvel@dorcel.com / +33 1 45 67 93 30 / +33 (0)6 62 08 24 53
