Erika Lust, born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1977, is an independent filmmaker, author, and founder of Erika Lust Films. After graduating from Lund University with a degree in Political Science with a focus on Feminism, Lust moved to Barcelona, where she established her production company in 2005.

Since then, she has directed four award-winning erotic films - Five Hot Stories for Her, Barcelona Sex Project, Life Love Lust, and Cabaret Desire, as well as some shorts – and is currently working on her fifth. Her written works include Good Porn: a Woman’s Guide, The Erotic Bible to Europe, and Love Me Like You Hate Me.

Lust is committed to forging a new concept of sexual expression, which has heretofore been the domain of men. “The mainstream adult industry would like us all to believe that women are only sexually attractive when playing certain roles,” Lust says, ”roles that are limiting for women today and for the girls, my own girls included, growing into the women of the future.”

Benjamin and Bastian’s friendship began in 2006 at the University of Frankfurt am Main. Two years later they realized their first experimental film “an der grenze des fruchtlandes” (On the Edge of the Fertile Land, 28 min.), which was shown at festivals and galleries throughout Germany and the Netherlands. “Der große, vergängliche Haut-Film” (The Great Ephemeral Skin, 42 min.) is their second collaboration and is based on their continuous quest to find ways of how lust and intimacy can be produced in images and lived both behind, and in front of, the camera.

Benjamin van Bebber first studied Philosophy, Movie- and Theatre-Studies in Frankfurt before in 2009 he started studying directing for theatre in Hamburg. It is here that he joined the theatre-network “Cobra Theater” and creates works combining opera, performance and choreography.

Bastian Zimmermann studied musicology and philosophy in university, and currently writes essays on music for German magazines, radio and newspaper. He is also a professor of musicology, is beginning a dissertation in Philosophy, and casually writes erotica.

Eddie Powell is a multiple, award winning director for New Sensations/Digital Sin. With over 100 titles to his name, Powell has established himself as one of the top directors in the business. From parodies, to all-sex videos, to girl-girl and romance features he’s been able to do it all. His directing career began in 2006 and since then his films have garnered numerous awards throughout the years. In 2013 he took home the top honor as Director of the Year at XBIZ, and 9 combined wins at both XBIZ and AVN for films he directed. Powell continues to make a name for himself in the world of high-quality adult entertainment and the best is yet to come.

Always a fan of erotic film, Gigi Pani was born in Rome in the year 1980. After founding his production company, TC Produzioni, Pani directed his first erotic piece, “Elisa”. The 15-minute short was aired at the 2010 Porn Film Festival Berlin before its feature on Lust Cinema. Pani states “in an era where Italian porn and erotica are at their lowest, there is an absolute need for nudity, beauty and sex in film.”

Jacky St. James hails from the East Coast, graduating with a BA in Drama and Anthropology and is an award winning adult writer and director for New Sensations.

She is known for a wide-range of films from romantic comedies to edgier all-sex releases with her most acclaimed titles being: Torn, The Friend Zone, Power and Control, and Dear Abby. Torn went on to receive Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Couples’ Release, and Best Screenplay award wins during the 2012 award season.

During her career in adult, Jacky has been an advocate of couple's-oriented pornography, and has been a guest speaker at UC - Santa Barbara, Exxxotica, UCLA, AEE, XBIZ 360 and has been featured in several popular mainstream publications including Jezebel and Slate.

Jacky shares pictures, clips, and stories about her successes and debacles as a woman working within the adult industry on her website: missjackystjames.com

A Harvard-educated, American erotic film director and curator based in Amsterdam, Jennifer writes and directs award-winning explicit erotic films combining authentic sex and art house values. They have screened all over the world at international festivals and cinemas in America, Europe and Japan.

In addition, she curates erotic-themed film programs and exhibitions for museums, art institutions and festivals; including the Museum of Sex in New York, Ladyfest, Women Inc., and the San Francisco Indie Erotic Film Festival, and she is a former co-director of the Amsterdam Alternative Erotica Film Festival.

She also gives lectures and leads workshops on erotica, porn, feminism and film theory at institutions like the University of Amsterdam and the Dutch Film Academy.

Jessica Nilsson Is a Swedish director based in Denmark; she is perhaps best known for the feature film All About Anna (2005).

She studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and later graduated from the Danish Film School.

All About Anna won three Scandinavian Adult Awards, including Best Scandinavian Couples Film, and was nominated for four AVN Awards, including Best Foreign Film.

Following All About Anna, Nilsson has mainly been writing and directing radio plays. The Danish Association of the Blind awarded her its 2005 Radioplay Award for her radio play Flammende kærlighed, produced by Danmarks Radio.

Born in Denmark during 1942, Knud Vesterskov has been working in the field of film and video since 1983. After graduating in graphic design, he pursued his passion of art throughout the world, from Paris to Bali for well over a decade. His erotic film, Constance, was the first produced by Puzzy Power, a division of Lars von Trier’s film company Zentropa, making it the first hardcore film ever to have been produced by an established mainstream studio. As the first embodiment of the Puzzy Power manifesto, it was soon followed by the other remarkable feminist films Pink Prison (1999) and All About Anna (2005).

Based in Berlin, Kristyan Geyr designed the world 's most exciting bed in 1992: the iconic Jailhousefuck Bed. The steel-framed, prison style bed has become a classic piece of fetish design furniture and is distributed worldwide. Geyr’s production company, Noodles & Noodles, has since gone on to design and produce a whole range of impeccably crafted furniture.

Apart from his many projects, Geyr also enjoys applying his talent to shooting erotic photography and films that incorporate the famous Jailhousefuck Bed. His style is aesthetic and stylish, and when editing his footage he works with some of the best talent in the film and music industry.

Liandra Dahl started as a performer of masturbation porn on beautifulagony.com back in 2004. She also worked with the same producers on ishotmyself.com and had such a great time they invited her to host and direct films on ifeelmyself.com in 2006. After a short period of time there Liandra decided she wanted to have total freedom and creative control and so started her own website www.LiandraDahl.com where she films masturbation and scenes between couples who have sexual relationships off camera, including her own partners and lovers. Liandra still performs as well as produces and has worked for Erika Lust in Cabaret Desire, Jennifer Lyon Bell in The Silver Shoes (to be released in 2013) and hopes to do much much more as both a performer and a producer in the future.

Born in Denmark in 1962, Lisbeth Lynghøft trained as an actress in New York and Copenhagen before pursuing a career in Sweden. Upon returning to Copenhagen, she founded and directed the Teatret Bag Døren for five years. Then in 1999, Lynghøft directed the second film produced by feminist porn company, Puzzy Power. Pink Prison, as it was called, was shown in the mainstream film festivals in Stockhold amd Rotterdam before winning the Venus Award for Best Scandinavian Film in Berlin. Her film is still considered one of the top feminist porn films of all time.

Committed to complete artistic control over her own work, Maria Beatty has gone on to establish herself as a true independent, winning awards and praise for her uncompromising work.

Her highly personal approach achieves an authentic sensuality rarely seen in adult cinema, leading viewers into the enticing world of fetishism: rope bondage, spanking, stilettos, latex, hot wax, golden showers, breast play, foot worship and more.

In her own words, "My films delight in the playful relationship between pleasure and pain."

"Her camera has captured vegans, skinheads, transsexuals, punks and squatters. Now she has been at the bathhouse in Vällingby and shot a lesbian porn movie that is also a pretty adorable love story. Mia Engberg is not satisfied until she has crushed both capitalism and gender oppression. And she wants you to have better sex." (Fredrik Strage)

"I remember seeing Parkside Girls, thinking she has something powerful to tell us. She will make many good films about our generation. And she has also done that, with respect and without compromise. Mia's films are mirrors of our time, and there, in the reflection of the mirror, we might get a glimpse of who we are. The world can be changed with films. Mia has proven that." (Stefan Jarl).

Based in Stockholm, Mia Engberg shoots documentaries and short films throughout Sweden, USA and France. In 2009, Engberg coordinated the project, Dirty Diaries: a compilation of 12 short feminist erotic films. This project received worldwide attention and the support of the Swedish Film Institute. Engberg currently teaches film direction at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts and is the bass player of ska band Vagina Grande.

A native of Ghent, Belgium, Murielle Scherre graduated with a degree in fashion design in 1998, then went on to found her fresh, erotic lingerie line, La Fille d'O, in 2003. Her debut in the adult film industry was as co-director with Jennifer Lyon Bell on the film, Skin. Like. Sun., which won the 2010 Feminist Porn Award for Best Direction. In the same year, Scherre directed her own solo project, J'Fais du Porno et J'aime ça.

What makes her films unique is her very newness at making them. She lets her senses guide the direction, letting situations unfold in a very fluid, naturalistic approach. Non-staged, done in single takes, Scherre creates something as intimate and evocative and spontaneous as sex itself.

Both her films and lingerie reflect Scherre's inspiration by the body itself - refined, sensitive, intelligent, supportive and stunning. She maintains that the transition into film was easy for her after using so much imagery to represent her lingerie products. "I'm in love with imagery," Scherre says, "It's like being able to share dreams."

N Maxwell Lander is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker and designer based out of Toronto, Canada. Her work, ranging from cutting-edge fashion portraiture to high-intensity hedonistic smut, has been featured in numerous international publications.

Her forays into erotic films and pornography have been met with much acclaim, with her first film, "Maybe He's Gifter", winning a Feminist Porn Award in 2001, and her second, "Emile", winning in 2012.

With a boundary-pushing style that often walks a thin line between decency and vulgarity, Maxwell's distinctive work has become a staple of the Toronto Queer community.

Watch her video on Vimeo

Born in 1980, Ovidie was an 18 year-old student of philosophy when she decided to enter the world of pornography as an actress. From the start of her career, the media developed an interest in the adult film star considered to be an 'intellectual'.

In 2001, she directed her first erotic film, "Orgy in Black", for which she was awarded the Hot D'Or for best screenplay. With this recognition, she became the youngest porn director in movie history.

Shortly thereafter, Ovidie directed her second feature film, "Lilith", which was praised by the entire profession as well as by many 'traditional' journalists and film reviews.

Today, Ovidie is directing adult movies and writes many sex guides in order to improve adult sexual education. A partisan of safe sex, she insists on the use of condoms during her film scenes. In April 2008, she took the helm of the production department of French Lover TV.

You couldn’t ask for a better guide than Pierre Roshan for exploring the world of exotic eroticism. Since 2008, Roshan, who is based in Germany, has been satisfying our curiosity in ancient sexual practices ranging from Turkey to Africa, India to Asia. His use of clear explanation during the scene, real-time editing and emphasis on partner connection are trademarks of his work, making him one of the most unique directors in the indie scene.

Founder and host of New York City's The Porno Jim Show (PornoJim.com), Jim works to create and promote a better kind of porn. His bi-monthly variety show is dirty, hilarious and downright fun, which he uses as an opportunity not only to entertain people, but to broaden their sexual horizons, encourage a thoughtful approach to their own sex lives, and to help people find out what kind of porn they like. He made his own 2007 film, Hookin' Up, for those women who were sexually adventurous and interested in adult movies, but who were dissatisfied with what was offered by mainstream productions, and of course due to his own private motto, "because America needs better porn!"

Check out his great philosophy in this Penthouse interview.

With more than 25 years of animation experience, Sara Koppel (born 1970, Koppelanimation.dk) is one of the most gifted artists to merge this unique art with erotica. After working on major productions with Jannik Hastrup and A-Film, Koppel founded her own studio in Denmark in 2002. Each project is hand drawn on paper with incredible results: as you can see from Ea's Garden, which consists of 4,320 pages of illustration. This short will eventually be part of a full-length erotic animated film, drawn and directed by Koppel, with a musical score by Sune Koter. Learn more about the award-winning film and donate to it's production at Nakedlovefilm.com

Tristan Taormino is an award-winning author, columnist, sex educator, speaker, radio host and feminist pornographer. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with her Bachelor's degree in American Studies from Wesleyan University in 1993.

Taormino is the author of eight books, all focusing on education and pleasure-enhancement, ranging from kink to anal sex to open relationships. In that vein, Tristan has also directed and produced 25 adult films belonging to the Chemistry, The Expert Guide and the Rough Sex Series. Known for her refreshing, personal, straight-to-the-point approach to sex and pleasure, Taormino’s work encourages open communication between partners and truly hails in a new generation of sex ed.

One of her most recent projects has been the radio and podcast show, Sex Out Loud, which covers a huge range of sexual topics and features such notable guests as Nina Hartley, Cindy Gallop, Dan Savage, Susie Bright, Dylan Ryan, Dr. Marty Klein, Jennifer Lyon Bell, Candida Royalle, and many others.