Kristen Bjorn

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Kristen Bjorn
Born (1957-10-12) 12 October 1957 (age 66)
Years active1989–present
Height5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Website www.kristenbjorn.com

Kristen Bjorn (born 12 October 1957 in London, England) is a British director and producer of gay pornographic films and a former gay porn film actor.

Contents

Early life

Bjorn was born in London, the son of a Russian mother and a British father. He was raised in Washington, D.C., where his father was stationed as a diplomat. He has a brother and two sisters. In an interview conducted in 1997, Bjorn stated that only one of his sisters knew of his profession as a maker of gay erotic films. [1]

After graduating from high school, Bjorn set out to travel widely, to places including Asia, India, and Europe. His career goal at the time was to be "a photographer for a magazine like National Geographic . I wanted to travel across the world and photograph people. I was really very interested in different cultures." [2]

Career

Bjorn arrived in San Francisco in 1978, where he encountered the gay community for the first time. "[I]t was all very strange to me." [2] Encouraged by the ideal of male beauty that he found in gay erotic magazines, Bjorn began working out and paying attention to his own physique. Around 1980, he was photographed by Fred Bisonnes for Mandate magazine. This was followed by two appearances in Falcon videos: Biker's Liberty (Falcon Studios 30, 1983) and The New Breed (Falcon Studios 32, 1983). Falcon chose the pseudonym Kristen Bjorn for him due to his resemblance to the Swedish tennis player Björn Borg. [3]

In the foreword to a book devoted to Kristen Bjorn's work, director William Higgins wrote that, "[in] the relatively brief history of hardcore gay videos, Kristen Bjorn has emerged unchallenged as the best director to date." [4]

In 1982 he moved to Brazil, pursuing his dream of becoming a professional photographer. In Brazil he stayed for eight years, in which he began to make the first male nude shots, starring only Brazilian models, which he sold to American gay magazines. In 1985, his friend and mentor Fred Bisonnes, who worked for Advocate Men magazine, invited him to submit his work to the magazine. Over the years, always under pressure from Bisonnes, he began to expand his creative space by making some softcore videos for the Advocate Men Live series.

In 1988 he directed and produced his first feature film Tropical Heatwave, which consisted of six masturbation scenes with muscular Brazilian men in exotic settings. With this film, Bjorn establishes his own brand of himself, utilizing a multi-racial cast and naturist settings. He later directed Carnaval in Rio and Island Fever, his first hardcore movies featuring sex scenes between men, including penetrations and multiple ejaculations.

He has taken care of all aspects of his films, from production to directing to photography, creating his own recognizable style. If the first films of his lacked dialogue, apart from the narrative voice, the later dialogue was incorporated into the script. Another and main characteristic of Bjorn's films is the use of unknown models, predominantly muscular and with a strong masculinity, without caring if they identify as heterosexual or homosexual but simply willing to participate in male sex scenes.

Filmography

Director/videographer
Executive producer (with other directors)

Awards and nominations

See also

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References

  1. Jamoo & Bjorn (1997) , p. 15
  2. 1 2 Jamoo & Bjorn (1997) , p. 17
  3. Jamoo & Bjorn (1997) , p. 19
  4. Jamoo & Bjorn (1997) , pp. 9–10
  5. "Winners of the 2007 FICEB Ninfa Awards" Archived 13 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine , h.b., 10 October 2007, xstarsnews.com. Retrieved 12 October 2010.
  6. XBIZ Announces Finalist Nominees for 2010 XBIZ Awards, XBIZ , Wednesday, 16 December 2009

Bibliography


Further reading

Awards
Preceded by
Wash West
for Naked Highway
GayVN Awards for Best Director
for Man Watcher

1998
Succeeded by
Jerry Douglas
for Dream Team